Directed by Damir Lukacevic. The first draft of the screenplay for this truly excellent German science fiction film went through my hands. (Due to scheduling conflicts, the rewritten ending went elsewhere.) Based on a short story by the Spanish writer Elia Barceló, Transfer is both enthralling and tragic in its exploration of where today's neoliberal politics of globalization, supply and demand, might take us. Well acted, well filmed and well written, it is a move well worth seeing.
To offer a
simplified version of the plot, one which leaves out all the nuances of the full
story: "Germany in the not-too-distant future. Menzana, a human tech firm,
offers paying clients personality transfers into younger, fitter bodies. The
clients come from the West, the hosts from less affluent regions. Despite some
initial moral qualms, the well-to-do but old and ill couple Hermann (Hans-Michael
Rehberg) and Anna (Ingrid Andree) agree to the process and reawaken in the young
and healthy bodies of two attractive Africans, Apolain (BJ Britt) and Sarah (Regine
Nehy). The African bodies belong to the German couple for 20 hours a day; Apolain
and Sarah, on the other hand, awaken daily for the remaining four hours.
Dismay, anger and desperation arise within the two hosts, and Sarah's
— or is it Anna's? – unexpected pregnancy does little to calm the situation..."
Interestingly enough, the poster above
totally and literally whitewashes a major point of the film, one which echoes a situation that will probably only increase in the future: the
rich (with the demand) are white & Western, the poor (with the supply) are black & Third World.
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