Tom Whalen

Flatland is a two-dimensional universe occupied by living geometric figures - squares, triangles, circles, etc. A Square, Attorney At Law, finds himself in the middle of two upheavals: the rise of martial law by the circular leadership of Flatland, and the arrival of A Sphere, CEO Of Messiah, Incorporated, a creature from a hitherto-unknown third dimensional world.

A few years from now, the next-generation cell phone that you swallow like a pill, dubbed the "I-Mind," becomes all the rage. Text message telepathically! Download movies straight to your brain! Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and JLo love their I-minds oh so much. But there's a hidden side-effect to taking an I-Mind: loss of all individuality and incorporation into the collective world-wide consciousness known as The Hive. All of humanity has been assimilated but one. Now, running out of food and fuel in his undisclosed broadcast bunker, driven half mad from loneliness, Doug Trench decides to fire up his old radio show one last time... ...and fight the Hive Mind with half his brain tied behind his back.

"The Straw That Broke" is a surrealist, micro-budget meta-fiction feature blending retro-futuristic aesthetics with philosophy to explore the boundaries between reality and the digital realm. "The virtual is viral," announces Clea Bardan, editor at DeBase SF, to Claudia Weiss, her overworked author of futuristic pulp fiction. Clea demands an impossible task: write five volumes within 31 hours. Claudia's journey spans from Stuttgart to Nueva York, a Harkonnen spaceship, and a water-based planet holding the secret to saving the multiverse from the O-Cloud—a virus destroying sentient life at its ontological core. But how much of this reality is authentic, and can a talking mouse from Claudia's own stories save the multiverse? Using diverse cinematic devices, the film tackles deep metaphysical questions while remaining a poignant story about loss, love, and hope for us all.