'Equals' is science-fiction romance film directed by Drake Doremus. The filmmaker opened up about his latest project where actors Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult portray lovers torn in a society where emotions, especially love, are forbidden.
According to the Daily Mail, Stewart, Hoult and Doremus made appearances in the recent premiere of their latest collaboration at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 13, 2015. Stewart and Hoult play star-crossed lovers in a futuristic society where emotions are suppressed - or better yet, banished from human existence. Despite this, their characters realize that they have fallen in love and the odds are not what they expected it to be.
Stewart admitted that the people in the film have been "completely neutralized" and that she sympathized with instances where everyone would rather not be feeling fear, anger or pain. Her poker-faced performance may have mimicked her famous character Bella in the 'Twilight Saga' with the film sharing some forbidden love similarities with 'Equals'.
It was reported by the Los Angeles Times that Stewart's Nia and Hoult's Silas worked together in a lab module and slowly developed feelings - in general and for each other - due to an epidemic of the "switched-on syndrome".
Since those kinds of emotions were widely chastised in their society, Nia and Silas are given the choice to lead separate lives or face the consequences of exile at a torture camp known as DEN. Emotions were considered a perilous threat to their society's peaceful co-existence.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, the 24-year old actress admitted that she was drawn to Doremus' sicence-fiction project specifically because of her admiration for the filmmaker's past work in 'Like Crazy'. The director also expressed his passion over his thought-provoking new project as well as the way his actors carried out his vision. He said that the simple premise of a loveless world was what brought him to carry out his latest film.
He said, "You remove emotion so people aren't killing each other and there's no religion and there's no politics, it's like, well, that's great, but at the same time, if you do all that, you might remove some of the most intrinsic things that are really important and that we value as human beings." Doremus added that he hoped his new film would answer the most basic questions in life including "What is the point of our lives? What makes our lives worth living?"
'Equals' was selected to compete for the Golden Lion award at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival. It also debuted in North American shores as part of the Special Presentations program at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.
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