RISE is a short Sci-Fi film by David Karlak about a robot revolution in the future, told from the perspective of the robots.

The short film stars Anton Yelchin (Star Trek Into Darkness, Terminator Salvation) and Rufus Sewell (Dark City, Hercules), who both deliver exceptional performances. The screenplay is written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Pacific Rim, God of War). Because RISE was shot over the span of over a year, several talented cinematographers have worked on RISE. They include, Roman Vasyanov, Sam McCurdy, Perry Ho and Chris Probst. The visual effects are being supervised by Scott Metzger.

In the near future, sentient robots are targeted for elimination after they develop emotional symmetry to humans and a revolutionary war for their survival begins.

Basically, RISE is a movie that flips the man v. machine trope on it's head. It's a movie about a robot uprising and revolution, but told from the point-of-view of the robots. Imagine The Arab Spring with robots.

The short film has been a passion project that has relied heavily on friends and favors to get it to where it is today. RISE was shot in piecemeal fashion since early 2013. They transformed skid row in Downtown Los Angeles into a robot slum, built a robot tenement set, and then trekked halfway across the world to wrap up production with a guerrilla shoot in Beijing, China!

This Kickstarter project is about a short film to showcase the daring and futuristic world of their planned feature length sci-fi thriller 'I-VOLUTION'.

The Story:

A brilliant but obsessed scientist finds himself on the brink of creating the world’s first artificial intelligence in this provocative and visceral sci-fi/suspense film from Mojo Road Entertainment. In the not too distant future, while creating the EVE Residence--a super computer operated ‘smart home’--Bionetic’s scientist COLIN DARROWAY discovers a way to link himself to the computer in hopes of creating the world’s first human-computer singularity. A symbiosis of man and machine that promises to accelerate the computer to artificial intelligence level and launch humanity to unbelievable heights.

Movie Inspirations & Influences: 2001: A Space Odyssey; Star Wars; Her; Soylent Green

THE SAND STORM (沙尘暴) is a dystopian science fiction film set in the not-too-distant future. It is a low-fi sci-fi short, shot and made in (mostly) China, telling the story of a city on the brink of a water shortage through the eyes and interactions of four main characters: a woman, a man, a lover, and a water smuggler.

Originally billed as a secret film filmed in China, with the dissident artist Ai Weiwei. Who plays a small part as "The Water Smuggler" - after a court case and settled disagreement  the billing had to remove the emphasis on the artist himself and focus on the film instead.

Jason Wishnow  a film-maker who has for years been the video manager for the popular micro-talk site and world-famous summit - TED. Wishnow knew Ai Wei Wei's story well - while he was working for TED; a secret Ai Wei Wei TED talk was smuggled to him, for presentation at the 2011 summit. Wishnow left his role at TED at 2013 and flew over to Beijing. During his stay a meeting with the artist was made possible, and an hour into a philosophical conversation, Ai Wei Wei leaned over and asked - "So, what can we do together?". Wishnow did not miss the opportunity and pitched a short story he had been playing around with. A science fiction story: The Sand Storm.

There won’t be any WARS OVER WATER for at least a decade, but this film will show the human turmoil affected by it.
Incredibly talented industry professionals in Beijing, London, Shanghai, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York have made this film a reality.