Fantasia Sci-Fi Entry ‘The Artifice Girl’ Drops Trailer, Poster (EXCLUSIVE)

Ahead of its world premiere in competition at Montreal's Fantasia, writer-director Franklin Ritch provided Variety exclusive access to the trailer and poster for his science debut feature -fiction, "The Artifice Girl".

The film will premiere in the Cheval Noir strand, among a range of equally unconventional stories brought to the screen by new and established global talent. Ritch is no stranger to the festival, having launched his short film "Bedridden" there in 2018.

Produced by Paper Street Pictures ("The Pale Door"), Blood Oath ("Extra Ordinary") and Ritch's Last Resort Ideas, "The Artifice Girl" follows the punitive interrogation of a rogue sorcerer responsible for the creation of an AI program to attract child predators and fight against human trafficking.

As technology becomes sentient and develops its own moral code, the characters are caught in the crosshairs as they debate overstepping authority, boundaries, and the abuse of power while questioning the comes out of anonymity and autonomy.

A poignant commentary on the future of conscious technology, the trailer taunts sharp discourse and an ominous fate for the observant young girl on the monitor, who hovers over the characters as their lives intersect.

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At the start of the clip, the camera slowly zooms out on a stoic and seemingly shy young man at the other end of a table. The camera pulls back further to reveal two officers looking directly at him. A copy of a young girl's photo is then slammed in front of him by the female agent as she sternly asks him if he recognizes her. The shots follow one another between the young man, the officers and a wall cluttered with the photo and case notes of the young girl. Playful and haunting music pervades the stage as the exchange begins to escalate.

Exhausted, the tech savant finally relents as the trailer ends, revealing that the girl is just an advanced, rapidly evolving computer-generated simulation.

With concise, intimate shots and not wasting a moment of dialogue, the teaser proves effective in setting the ominous and vital tone carried throughout the film. Simple framing allows the trailer to focus on the main narrative, focusing on the emotion it extracts from each character; a plot as controversial as it is intriguing, using dark and often eerie settings adds to the mystique.

"The Artifice Girl" features memorable talent David Girard ("Teardrop Goodbye") and Sinda Nichols ("That Abandoned Place") as Special Agents Amos McCullough and Dena Helms, and Tatum Matthews (" The Waltons: Homecoming”) as Cherry, with Lance Henrikson (“The Blacklist”) and Ritch himself, who plays Garreth, the troubled vigilante whose noble creation launches the moral dilemma.

In laying the groundwork for the project, Ritch commented, "While this is an extremely ambitious sci-fi, it was important to us to ground the story in technical veracity and thoughtful characters. It becomes a fascinating mystery that will hopefully prompt ethical and philosophical discussion."

The Artifice Girl poster reveal courtesy of Franklin Ritch

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