Director Virginia Abramovich is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s First Films directing residency. For her first full-length dramatic feature, she has taken on a most challenging and difficult genre: a sci-fi romance.

Jamie, a female photographer, is missing her boyfriend Isaac, who is presumed dead. Except that he keeps showing up in her visions, entreating her to join him in some sort of parallel universe. She travels to the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores in order to explore a possible cross over. Interestingly, and increasingly commonly in Canadian films, this is a multi-racial romance, which is never mentioned as an issue at any time.

Isaac was a nuclear physicist, so his dreamlike entreaties for Jamie to come join him may be more than mere longing for a departed one. As Jamie visits the island and takes stock of how she got there, she begins to suspect that she may have been more complicit in her lover’s vanishing than she had perhaps realized.

The cinematography is stunning as the film was shot on over thirty-five locations spanning two continents. The whole concept of a multiverse that may exist as a direct result of our choices is a fascinating one. Is a character like this functioning in an enlightened realm, or are they just mentally deranged? And what’s love got to do with it? This is a cerebral, fast-paced science fiction story, with romantic longing at its core. One of the most original first-time features at this year’s WFF.