The Eggregores' Theory (2024) Movie Script
81. VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
39. VENICE FILM CRITICS' WEEK OPENING FILM
Gargantua Film Distribution
I don't remember exactly
how I lost sight of her.
She faded...
Like the color of paintings
after too much light.
And how to describe what it used to be?
What it felt like?
I just remember a lightning strike
and the strongest heartbeat.
I don't know whether it was
a good or a bad thing.
At that time
things were different.
Then they started to change.
Good morning Lublich city.
The warning level for today
is once again very low.
We wish everyone
a safe, happy day.
Eliofilm, Il Varco Cinema
and NAFFINTUSI present
a film by Andrea Gatopoulos
I remember it started suddenly.
Out of the blue.
Some people died, and they said
it was just a heart attack.
But later autopsies couldn't
figure out which problem it was.
Then there were many more.
At first
people thought they disappeared.
They hung missing posters on the walls
but they were found
mostly in their houses.
All dead in mysterious circumstances.
Someone had been alone.
Others in groups,
either idling or dancing.
Silent or
in the middle of conversations.
It took a while to figure out
what this new disease was.
Of course, it made everyone paranoid.
There was nothing else on TV.
There was some kind of
contagion mechanism,
but it was unclear how it worked.
They made tests but found nothing.
They were about to give up
when a hypothesis suddenly arose.
It came from a linguistics university,
from a professor who saw
his very own mother dead
with a book in her hands.
He said that there might have been
something in the book
that it could be related to paper,
some new form of mold or bacteria
that was proliferating there.
A little while later, he was proven wrong,
but not completely.
It was discovered that a specific word
had become poisonous to humankind,
and that it couldn't be read
or written or spoken,
nor even looked at.
But they could not say which word it was.
Or it would have killed everyone.
That's when they advised us
to stop reading, writing,
and sometimes speaking altogether.
Some people started
going around with earplugs.
Others tore out their ears or eyes.
Others started going around
blindfolded or with helmets.
That was the time when she
decided to stop talking to me for a while.
For fear we would hurt each other.
Our long phone calls
didn't happen anymore.
At some point, I got the news
she lost her mother
because of the poisonous word.
She became lonely and dark, they said.
She spent her days praying, they said.
A time of political turmoil followed.
There were huge fights
in the parliament.
One party accused the other of
not being able to solve the crisis,
or to give answers to citizens.
Extremists came out stronger.
Crowds started gathering and protesting
in demand for a solution.
It was total chaos.
To address the problem
they hired a team
of data scientists
and gave them all the budget
they would need.
They built a machine that started
to cross-reference all the available data.
Soon the machine found the word.
Then everything
containing that word
was erased from history.
The scientists received global praise
and were dismissed.
And the crisis was solved.
People started coming back to the streets,
timidly, scared.
Some decided to keep staying in.
Of course, the
surveillance techniques
that were put into place
were permanently stayed.
I remember tried to call her
again and again.
She would not pick up.
One day she just said...
"I dont want to hurt you."
And then hung up on me.
They told me she believed
she had caused the death of her mother.
They told me she was involved
in some conspiracy against the government.
I didn't believe it.
I went below her window
and shouted her name.
She wouldn't open.
Sometime later,
to the disbelief of everyone.
A second word popped up.
This time it was much worse.
They found out the poisonous part
of the vocabulary was expanding.
And that almost every day
one new word would become
fatal to hear or to write.
Panic spread.
Unfortunately, mass graves were opened.
Then it was announced
that it was forbidden to talk
or write until further notice.
But people started being very restless.
Voices spread of the fact
that the poison would affect words around
which there was too much discussion.
People wanted to find out who
was the culprit as soon as possible..
Libraries were the first to be attacked.
Books were burned.
Cinema archives were destroyed.
Poets and novelists were burned
together with their houses.
Some others hanged.
In the span of a few nights
most of the words were poisonous.
Everything was destroyed in silence.
By then she had disappeared
from my life.
Her house had become vacant.
It felt like someone broke into
her apartment looking for something.
Coming in through the open door
I saw in a corner the shawl
I had given her some months before.
And the piano, where she used
to play her beautiful music.
But it was broken.
I wanted to tell her that
there was nothing to fear.
That we could be together even
without speaking a single word.
That for me, it would have been enough.
But she was gone.
At some point, the machine proposed
a new language.
It was very hard to learn
because you couldn't translate it
from existing language.
It was spread through television
using images and drawings.
But it was created to fit
very practical needs.
I tried to write her a letter
I could give her one day
if I ever found her again.
But there was no word to tell her
how much I missed her.
How I cursed the disease
for tearing us apart.
Or how in the back of my head
I was starting to think that it was all
just a big trick played on all of us.
And how would she be able
to answer me?
There was no words for her to say:
"The last thing I want on earth
is to hurt you
"I hope we will meet in heaven.
"I am praying for you."
The only thing that stayed the same
was her silence.
But I don't know why.
It was hurting less and less
with each day.
There's no doubt here
that science has failed us,
The only explanation for this
is in the Eggregores' Theory.
But what is an eggregore?
An accumulation of social energy
around words or ideas
that loaded with hate and hard feelings,
become deadly to humankind.
People should understand it's not
the time for philosophical debates now
nor for quarreling around ideas and so on.
If something like this happens again,
this time it will kill us all.
Good morning Lublich city.
The Machine has assured us
another safe and productive day,
We recommend, like always,
maximum caution when talking in groups
and wish you all the very best.
Time passed.
We started to forget.
To get used.
In general, the economic conditions
and the main stock market indexes
went back to their former numbers.
Yet the cities remained empty,
and most of the social activities
didn't exist anymore.
No one missed them
for some strange reason.
Remnants of the old world
still survived.
Abandoned libraries full of books
no one dares to read anymore.
An old history buried in the dust.
I thought I'd never see her again.
But recently, as I was
walking back from my job,
I suddenly saw her.
She was standing on
the other side of the sidewalk.
I looked at her
and saw in her face a glimpse
of some haunting feeling.
But I didn't know how
to put it into words.
We looked at each other's eyes,
full of fear.
The fear that an eggregore
would develop among us.
I think she felt the same.
She walked away into the night
and disappeared forever from my life.
Eventually I thought it was better
to shred those letters in pieces
and throw them away.
I had many things to do,
and in one way or another
life had to go on.
So I did it.
I remember it was a rainy day of November,
the sixth or seventh.
Bread was 5.99 per kilogram.
And it was kind of cold.
But, you know, all in all,
it was nothing I couldn't stand.
The Eggregores' Theory
Written and directed by
Andrea Gatopoulos
Produced by
Eliofilm, Il Varco Cinema, naffintusi
Associate Producer
David Rumsey
Producers - Ariens Damsi, Luigi Mascolo,
Marco Crispano, Andrea Gatopoulos
Voice
David Rumsey
Additional music by
Giorgio Labagnara
"Echoes of Devotion"
voice by Imago Latens
Sound editing and mix
Tommaso Barbrao
Sound editing - Luca Canzano
Audio post - Fullcode
AI generation, editing, titles, vfx
Andrea Gatopoulos
Script and edit supervisor
Zhenia Kazankina
Copyright 2024 ELIOFILM,
IL VARCO CINEMA, NAFFINTUSI
Produttori ai sensi dell'art.
45 L. 633/1941
39. VENICE FILM CRITICS' WEEK OPENING FILM
Gargantua Film Distribution
I don't remember exactly
how I lost sight of her.
She faded...
Like the color of paintings
after too much light.
And how to describe what it used to be?
What it felt like?
I just remember a lightning strike
and the strongest heartbeat.
I don't know whether it was
a good or a bad thing.
At that time
things were different.
Then they started to change.
Good morning Lublich city.
The warning level for today
is once again very low.
We wish everyone
a safe, happy day.
Eliofilm, Il Varco Cinema
and NAFFINTUSI present
a film by Andrea Gatopoulos
I remember it started suddenly.
Out of the blue.
Some people died, and they said
it was just a heart attack.
But later autopsies couldn't
figure out which problem it was.
Then there were many more.
At first
people thought they disappeared.
They hung missing posters on the walls
but they were found
mostly in their houses.
All dead in mysterious circumstances.
Someone had been alone.
Others in groups,
either idling or dancing.
Silent or
in the middle of conversations.
It took a while to figure out
what this new disease was.
Of course, it made everyone paranoid.
There was nothing else on TV.
There was some kind of
contagion mechanism,
but it was unclear how it worked.
They made tests but found nothing.
They were about to give up
when a hypothesis suddenly arose.
It came from a linguistics university,
from a professor who saw
his very own mother dead
with a book in her hands.
He said that there might have been
something in the book
that it could be related to paper,
some new form of mold or bacteria
that was proliferating there.
A little while later, he was proven wrong,
but not completely.
It was discovered that a specific word
had become poisonous to humankind,
and that it couldn't be read
or written or spoken,
nor even looked at.
But they could not say which word it was.
Or it would have killed everyone.
That's when they advised us
to stop reading, writing,
and sometimes speaking altogether.
Some people started
going around with earplugs.
Others tore out their ears or eyes.
Others started going around
blindfolded or with helmets.
That was the time when she
decided to stop talking to me for a while.
For fear we would hurt each other.
Our long phone calls
didn't happen anymore.
At some point, I got the news
she lost her mother
because of the poisonous word.
She became lonely and dark, they said.
She spent her days praying, they said.
A time of political turmoil followed.
There were huge fights
in the parliament.
One party accused the other of
not being able to solve the crisis,
or to give answers to citizens.
Extremists came out stronger.
Crowds started gathering and protesting
in demand for a solution.
It was total chaos.
To address the problem
they hired a team
of data scientists
and gave them all the budget
they would need.
They built a machine that started
to cross-reference all the available data.
Soon the machine found the word.
Then everything
containing that word
was erased from history.
The scientists received global praise
and were dismissed.
And the crisis was solved.
People started coming back to the streets,
timidly, scared.
Some decided to keep staying in.
Of course, the
surveillance techniques
that were put into place
were permanently stayed.
I remember tried to call her
again and again.
She would not pick up.
One day she just said...
"I dont want to hurt you."
And then hung up on me.
They told me she believed
she had caused the death of her mother.
They told me she was involved
in some conspiracy against the government.
I didn't believe it.
I went below her window
and shouted her name.
She wouldn't open.
Sometime later,
to the disbelief of everyone.
A second word popped up.
This time it was much worse.
They found out the poisonous part
of the vocabulary was expanding.
And that almost every day
one new word would become
fatal to hear or to write.
Panic spread.
Unfortunately, mass graves were opened.
Then it was announced
that it was forbidden to talk
or write until further notice.
But people started being very restless.
Voices spread of the fact
that the poison would affect words around
which there was too much discussion.
People wanted to find out who
was the culprit as soon as possible..
Libraries were the first to be attacked.
Books were burned.
Cinema archives were destroyed.
Poets and novelists were burned
together with their houses.
Some others hanged.
In the span of a few nights
most of the words were poisonous.
Everything was destroyed in silence.
By then she had disappeared
from my life.
Her house had become vacant.
It felt like someone broke into
her apartment looking for something.
Coming in through the open door
I saw in a corner the shawl
I had given her some months before.
And the piano, where she used
to play her beautiful music.
But it was broken.
I wanted to tell her that
there was nothing to fear.
That we could be together even
without speaking a single word.
That for me, it would have been enough.
But she was gone.
At some point, the machine proposed
a new language.
It was very hard to learn
because you couldn't translate it
from existing language.
It was spread through television
using images and drawings.
But it was created to fit
very practical needs.
I tried to write her a letter
I could give her one day
if I ever found her again.
But there was no word to tell her
how much I missed her.
How I cursed the disease
for tearing us apart.
Or how in the back of my head
I was starting to think that it was all
just a big trick played on all of us.
And how would she be able
to answer me?
There was no words for her to say:
"The last thing I want on earth
is to hurt you
"I hope we will meet in heaven.
"I am praying for you."
The only thing that stayed the same
was her silence.
But I don't know why.
It was hurting less and less
with each day.
There's no doubt here
that science has failed us,
The only explanation for this
is in the Eggregores' Theory.
But what is an eggregore?
An accumulation of social energy
around words or ideas
that loaded with hate and hard feelings,
become deadly to humankind.
People should understand it's not
the time for philosophical debates now
nor for quarreling around ideas and so on.
If something like this happens again,
this time it will kill us all.
Good morning Lublich city.
The Machine has assured us
another safe and productive day,
We recommend, like always,
maximum caution when talking in groups
and wish you all the very best.
Time passed.
We started to forget.
To get used.
In general, the economic conditions
and the main stock market indexes
went back to their former numbers.
Yet the cities remained empty,
and most of the social activities
didn't exist anymore.
No one missed them
for some strange reason.
Remnants of the old world
still survived.
Abandoned libraries full of books
no one dares to read anymore.
An old history buried in the dust.
I thought I'd never see her again.
But recently, as I was
walking back from my job,
I suddenly saw her.
She was standing on
the other side of the sidewalk.
I looked at her
and saw in her face a glimpse
of some haunting feeling.
But I didn't know how
to put it into words.
We looked at each other's eyes,
full of fear.
The fear that an eggregore
would develop among us.
I think she felt the same.
She walked away into the night
and disappeared forever from my life.
Eventually I thought it was better
to shred those letters in pieces
and throw them away.
I had many things to do,
and in one way or another
life had to go on.
So I did it.
I remember it was a rainy day of November,
the sixth or seventh.
Bread was 5.99 per kilogram.
And it was kind of cold.
But, you know, all in all,
it was nothing I couldn't stand.
The Eggregores' Theory
Written and directed by
Andrea Gatopoulos
Produced by
Eliofilm, Il Varco Cinema, naffintusi
Associate Producer
David Rumsey
Producers - Ariens Damsi, Luigi Mascolo,
Marco Crispano, Andrea Gatopoulos
Voice
David Rumsey
Additional music by
Giorgio Labagnara
"Echoes of Devotion"
voice by Imago Latens
Sound editing and mix
Tommaso Barbrao
Sound editing - Luca Canzano
Audio post - Fullcode
AI generation, editing, titles, vfx
Andrea Gatopoulos
Script and edit supervisor
Zhenia Kazankina
Copyright 2024 ELIOFILM,
IL VARCO CINEMA, NAFFINTUSI
Produttori ai sensi dell'art.
45 L. 633/1941