THE ARRAY

By Darrell James ROODT

LOCAL MOTION PICTURES - as PROD

Drama - Development 2024

A teenager blacks out and wakes 48 hours later in the Desert Satellite Array, pregnant. The church hails her as a Virgin miracle. The UFO Believers call her an abductee. A loner neuro-astrophysicist wants to probe her broken memory for the truth.

    • Year of production
    • 2024
    • Genres
    • Drama, Horror, Science-fiction
    • Countries
    • SOUTH AFRICA, CANADA
    • Languages
    • ENGLISH
    • Budget
    • 1 - 3 M$
    • Duration
    • 90 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Darrell James ROODT
    • Writer(s)
    • Emma LUNGISWA DE WET, Stephen LAUGHTON
    • Producer(s)
    • Greig BUCKLE (Local Motion Pictures), Robert NAIDOO (Local Motion Pictures)
    • Synopsis
    • 17 year old Keeva floats in the dark water, closing her eyes. When she opens them, she’s in a hot desert, naked. She’s been gone for 48 hours. She remembers nothing - but a strange rhythm thrums at the back of her mind and she’s jarred by flashbacks of bright light, smooth steel, a shadowy figure…

      Keeva, still a virgin, is shocked to find that she’s pregnant. The church hails her as a miracle. Kelvin thinks his daughter’s been visited by the aliens that he believes drove his wife to suicide. Keeva is trapped: no scholarship. No hope for an abortion from the clinic’s evangelical nurse. No security in a town where any man might be her rapist.

      But Keeva is drawn to an outsider: Dr Erik Locke, a neuro-astrophysicist at The Array. He’s mapping similarities in the neural and cosmic webs, searching for the origins of dark matter. He needs research volunteers - if he scans her brain, it may help her unlock the truth. Keeva spends more time at Locke’s lab - avoiding dad’s drinking, the whispers from churchfolk and the stares from UFO believers.

      Keeva’s devastation is complete when paternity test results name her own father. But Kelvin can’t remember - mad with self-loathing and guilt, he locks himself in the bar. Keeva finally understands her mother’s cryptic suicide note - she doesn’t belong here anymore, either. Keeva fills her pockets with stones from her mother’s grave, and walks into the reservoir. As she sinks, she’s enveloped by a blaze of light and sound - the same strange rhythm. Keeva wakes in a metal chamber, a figure standing over her. But it’s not a spaceship. It’s Locke’s stainless steel laboratory. Keeva is heavily pregnant and restrained to his table.

      Locke explains that he extracted Keeva’s DNA and implanted her with an embryo that is a perfect clone.

      Locke takes Keeva and Vincent’s empty bodies to watch their last sunset together overlooking The Array. He tucks Keeva’s mom’s suicide note into her pocket. Vinnie watches in silent, helpless heartbreak as Locke forces a blade between Keeva’s fingers and slits her wrists. Locke kisses Keeva’s old body goodbye as she bleeds out. The baby scowls at him with a hatred and intelligence beyond its years. He smiles. She may hate him now, but they’ve unlocked infinity together. They have time to work on that.