When two couples with mixed feelings about having kids hatch a plan to share one baby, it seems like the perfect compromise-until things spiral out of control.
Synopsis
In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato ponders: what would happen if one of the prisoners managed to free themselves from their chains and escape from the cave? What if that prisoner were Jay, a little 7-year-old boy?
Director’s statement
What lies behind the daily movement of a city? Last winter, we met in Paris and began discussing the Allegory of the Cave, as told in Plato’s Republic. The myth imagines humanity living in chains, facing the back of a cave, and watching shadows move on the walls, thinking it is reality. We both work with images, which certainly can be illusions, but can also become instruments of struggle and liberation of thought. So, from this discussion, we decided to create a short film. We had a few fixed ideas—the cave, the dance, the city bustling around us—and one question: what would happen if we all managed to turn together towards the exit of the cave? Perhaps it is not enough to assert that images are illusions as long as the chains that bind us are real.
Check out the trailer for The Beast Within, an upcoming movie starring Kit Harington, Ashleigh Cummings, James Cosmo, and Caoilinn Springall.
After a series of strange events leads her to question her family’s isolated life on a fortified compound deep in the English wilds, 10-year-old Willow follows her parents on one of their secret late-night treks to the heart of the ancient forest. But upon witnessing her father undergo a terrible transformation, she too becomes ensnared by the dark ancestral secret they’ve tried so desperately to conceal.
The Beast Within is produced by Merlin Merton, Martin Owen, Ryan Hamilton, Karl Hall, Sebastian Street, Alex Chang, Jack Christian, Evan Ross, Jordan Wagner, and Ying Ye. It is written by Greer Taylor Ellison and Alexander J. Farrell.
The Beast Within, directed by Alexander J. Farrell, opens in theaters nationwide on July 26, 2024.