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The director of the recent sci-fi film Mercy reveals why he believes the screenlife approach is essential to modern filmmaking.
Posted in: Amazon MGM Studios, Movies | Tagged: Amazon MGM Studios, mercy, timur bekmambetov
Mercy Filmmaker Discusses the Relevancy of Screenlife Stories
The director of the recent sci-fi film Mercy reveals why he believes the screenlife approach is essential to modern filmmaking.
Article Summary
- Mercy director Timur Bekmambetov highlights why screenlife techniques define storytelling today.
- Bekmambetov argues films without screenlife elements now feel outdated in our digital age.
- Mercy explores AI and justice through digital interfaces, blending sci-fi and courtroom thriller.
- Earlier screenlife movies like Unfriended and Searching lay the groundwork for Mercy's bold approach.
Timur Bekmambetov has spent the last decade helping to build a new visual space for thrillers as a director and producer behind the modern "screenlife" approach used in various horror titles like Unfriended, Searching, Profile, and Missing. And in a recent conversation about that style and why he keeps returning to it, Bekmambetov explained that, to him, it is no longer a gimmick so much as a necessity. Here's what we had to say on the growing (and relevant) sub-genre topic.
Timur Bekmambetov Breaks Down the Importance of "Screenlife" Films
Bekmambetov says, "If you don't have a Screenlife element in a movie, it looks old. And we made Searching, Missing, produced Profile, and Unfriended. There are a lot of movies in this language. And every time the question is: what's next? What will be the next step? And then when I read the [Mercy] script for the first time — Marco van Belle wrote the script about AI — I understood this is the next screenlife movie. Because now we live in a digital world, not only with humans. There is another species between us. It's algorithms. And we need to learn how to live together, how to interact, and we need to understand who we are in this case."
That "next step" is Mercy, his latest feature, which blends courtroom thriller, sci-fi, and screenlife techniques. Set in a near-future Los Angeles, the film follows detective Chris Raven, who is accused of killing his wife and put on trial in a system overseen by an AI judge. Much of the story plays out through feeds, interfaces, and digital evidence, with Bekmambetov using the format to underline how every part of modern life is mediated by screens and code.
It's also a culmination of what he has learned from earlier screenlife projects. Unfriended turned a Skype call into a supernatural horror story; Searching used browser windows and phone logs to power a missing-person mystery; Missing expanded the idea globally; Profile folded social media and recruitment into a real-world thriller. Now, with Mercy, he is betting that audiences are ready for a version of that style wired directly into current fears about AI and justice. However, the film just hit theaters last week, and both critics and audiences haven't exactly connected with it (yet).
Still, for those of you who have already seen Mercy, how do you think the film compares to other screenlife stories?
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