Starring Sunita Mani from Netflix's hit series "GLOW" and USA's "Mr. Robot" - watch the award winning sci-fi short film now.
"Regulation" by Ryan Patch
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More About Regulation:
Every child has the right to be happy. By law.
In the near future, a young social worker (Sunita Mani, âGlowâ & "Mr. Robot") travels to a small community to administer behavior-modifying "patches" that guarantee happiness for the wearers. She must decide what to do when a precocious girl (Audrey Bennett, âFrozen on Broadwayâ) refuses to accept the patch.
Director's Statement:
As someone with a close family member who struggles with severe mental health issues, the way that we understand and help people with these challenges is always on my mind. So, when I stumbled across a Harvard bioethicistâs blog about the idea of always-on, perfectly-administered drip dosage of antidepressants, an entire world began to form in my head where this technology was a part of everyday life.
I started to think about what this could do for people in our country, but also what it would do for our countryâs culture. Who would use it? How would we handle this as a society? And also, how might the government address the disparity in privilege this technology would create between children who grew up with the wealth to be âhappyâ and those who did not? This lead me to think about what the governmentâs responsibility is to âlevel the playing fieldâ in health and where can human freedom be factored into these decisions?
There are a number of contentious issues in our country that, at their core, are discussions that pit something that might make society âbetterâ against a loss of individual freedoms. We all agree itâs good the government removes citizensâ âfreedomâ to drive on the left side of the road in return for having safe roads. But where should the line be between giving up a freedom that makes âsocietyâ a better place, and allowing citizens to retain important autonomy? Many of us disagree about where this line might be for different issues like guns, education, or medical care, but I hope that this film serves as a starting place to discuss these issues, and for each side to empathize with the values and motivations of the other.
This film was made possible by a grant from The Moving Picture Institute.