Expanding possibilities or trapping minds? Welcome to the future of virtual reality. Welcome to Australian sci-fi thriller OtherLife.

Inventing a revolutionary new drug, software engineer Ren Amari (Jessica de Gouw, MIFF 2014’s Cut Snake) changes the way that humanity experiences time. One dose, and seconds feel like hours inside the user’s head. She designed it to save her comatose brother, but her business partner has other plans: selling the drug to the government, who want to use it to imprison criminals in their own brains.

Australian writer/director Ben C Lucas turns today’s new technological frontier into tomorrow’s nightmarish future in his second feature after 2010’s Wasted on the Young. Adapting Kelley Eskridge’s popular science fiction novel Solitaire, Lucas, Eskridge and Highlander screenwriter Gregory Widen have crafted a fresh new film that blends smarts, style and ambition into a mind-bending ride, with ample assistance from a cast of local talent that includes Red Dog: True Blue’s Thomas Cocquerel and The Sapphires’ (MIFF 2012) TJ Power.

Director Ben C Lucas will be at both sessions to introduce the film and take part in a post-screening Q&A.