CIFF NewAmericanCinema OPERATOR web 2

Operator

Year 2016
Runtime 87 mins

Actor Martin Starr in attendance for the September 23 screening!

Joe (Martin Starr, SILICON VALLEY, FREAKS AND GEEKS) is a programmer fraught with debilitating anxiety and panic attacks. To manage his condition, he methodically quantifies everything including work, sex and exercise.

Joe is developing an interactive voice response system that can respond sincerely with empathy, which he models after his wife Emily (Mae Whitman, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER). Emily hopes that participating in Joe’s project may reinvigorate a marriage strained by the pressures of work and divergent personal interests.

What begins as collaboration devolves into a precarious affair between Joe and Emily’s automaton. Joe becomes obsessed with perfecting his creation as an unchanging version of his wife to satisfy his sexual and psychosocial needs. As Joe slips further into a fantasy relationship with his program, he risks losing Emily as she dares to grow and change. 

A dark comedy about love in the age of technology, director Logan Kibens' remarkably assured feature directorial debut OPERATOR wowed audiences at SXSW 2016.

Countries

United States
Director
Logan Kibens
Producer
Logan Kibens, Aaron Cruze
Screenwriter
Sharon Greene Greene, Logan Kibens
Music
Sage Lewis
Cast
Martin Starr, Mae Whitman, Nat Faxon, Retta, Christine Lahti, Cameron Esposito