The Discovery

Captain Esson Halser of the U.S.S Centauri is alone on Planet Aurelia, Earth’s nearest inhabited planet. He is on a mission to extract all organic life forms to send back to New Earth, where humanity has since settled – or so he thinks. His only companion in this lonely existence, an Artificial Intelligence system embodied in a drone called SAN X9000, isn’t of much companionship. Every day he sets out and completes his tasks. One day, on a mission, a peculiar piece of his past catapult him into a chase for truth, leading him to find the true nature of his mission – one that puts him not on any other planet at all, but rather close to home.

Directed and written by Jill Von Dae

About the filmmaker: Jill Von Dae is a Chinese-Canadian award winning director, producer, and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. In 2018, Jill was awarded “30 Under 30 Filmmakers to Watch” by the Los Angeles Film Awards Association for her winning film “Rebirth”. The film also won awards across ten states and five countries and was curated by Southwestern University into their filmmaking curriculum. Her other directorial accomplishments include sci-fi short “The Discovery”, a finalist out of 500 films at LAFA, as well as female-oriented films titled “Prayer” and “Deliverance”. In 2020, Jill’s sci-fi dystopian TV pilot script “UMERIKA” won the Fresh Voices International Screenplay Competition, placing first out of 1400. It also won the Diversity & Inclusion Award for it’s commentary on race relations in the United States. Jill founded Black Velvet Films with producer Anirudh Pisharody, a production company based in Los Angeles specializing in innovative content for the undercurrent eye.

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