The Congress

The Congress is a 2013 live-action/animated science-fiction drama film written and directed by Ari Folman, based on Stanisław Lem's 1971 Polish science-fiction novel The Futurological Congress. It stars Robin Wright as a fictionalized version of herself who agrees to have a film studio use a digital clone of her in any film they want. The Congress then flashes forward twenty years later to her travels in the studio's animated utopia world, where anyone can become an avatar of themselves, but are required to use hallucinogenic drugs to enter a mutable illusory state. The Congress premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival on 15 May 2013. Independent film distributor Drafthouse Films announced, along with Films We Like In Toronto, their co-acquisition of the North American rights to the film and a US theatrical and VOD/digital release planned for 2014. Plot Robin Wright is an aging actress with a reputation for being fickle and unreliable that prevents her from getting a lot of roles. Her son, Aaron, suffers from Usher syndrome, which is slowly destroying his sight and hearing. With the help of Dr. Barker, Robin barely manages to stave off the worst effects of her son's decline, although his condition is sliding into its terminal stage. Robin's longtime agent Al takes her to meet Jeff Green, the CEO of Miramount Studios, a film studio that offers to buy her likeness and digitize her into a computer-animated version of herself. Realizing she may be unable to find future work with the emergence of this new technology, Robin agrees to do it for a hefty sum of money. She is also forced to promise never to act again. After her body is digitally scanned, the studio is able to make films starring her, using only computer-generated characters. Robin's virtual persona becomes the star of a popular film franchise, Rebel Robot Robin. Twenty years later, Robin travels to Abrahama City, where she will speak at the "Futurological Congress", Miramount's entertainment conference. Abrahama City is an animated, surreal utopia that is created from figments of people's imaginations, where anyone can become an animated avatar of themselves but are required to use hallucinogenic drugs to enter a mutable illusory state. While discussing her new contract with Jeff, Robin learns that the studio has developed a new technology that will allow anyone to devour her or possibly transform themselves into her with the hallucinogen.