Save your seat. (Click this link): 1st Annual Fort Lauderdale Art & Design Week Local Film Maker Showcase Monday January 23, 2023 the red carpet opens at 7:00.
Episode 1
Series title: UTOPIA
Genre: Magic Realism
Themes: Evolution and Utopian Society.
Based on the novel: Utopia
Writer: T.A. Terga
Synopsis
In a post-apocalyptic Earth, survivors of the nuclear holocaust of humanity in a remote location are building a neo-society based on the principles of Shambhala by developing mental powers.
During camp-act, one of the legends from the past they vicariously experience through telepathy and astral travel is the story of Taharai, the Hybrid—a legendary spider woman who wreaked havoc in the cities of the modern world.
When mad scientist, Steve Goldberg, discovers Taharai’s coordinates in the Amazon Rainforest, he captures the venomous parahuman and confines her to Labsys for genetic testing and cloning.
But Taharai outsmarts security and escapes into the city lights. While scavenging and killing to survive, the Hybrid meets Ana, the link to her forest friend, Alan, a gold digger in Brazil who plans to rescue her.
With Ana’s help, Taharai becomes a conscious woman and proves she can control her instincts. But on her last night in town, the Hybrid becomes sexually aroused at a Night Club where Ana takes her for a treat. This time, it is the club owner whose lights go out while trying to seduce her.
The Hybrid runs from the scene chased by bad cop Tony, the Fed who wants to take out the rare Hybrid. There's a good chance Taharai’s friend Max, the good local cop, may arrive too late to save his karate pupil.
Wounded, the Hybrid disappears into the night.
To be continued....
Background of the Film:
This film was premiered at Cinema Paradiso on March 22, 2013, as “Spyderwoman.” It was the first feature by T.A. Terga, "Angela," of TAT Productions, writer of the book, Spiderwoman, on which it was based. Most of the crew included FT. Lauderdale filmmakers and actors. Broward County long-time resident, award-winning photographer and filmmaker Ronny Cush, who helped her direct, shoot, and edit the film, and Angela, worked together to adapt the original to screen during and after attending MIU's Film Production Program.
However, after writing and publishing Utopia, which links the exploits of the "Hybrid" to a future dystopian Earth where survivors struggle to control their minds through the teachings of Shambhala, T. A. Terga, "Angela" is moving heaven and earth to cut Hybrid's film footage into a new series.
The TV Series UTOPIA is based on a tall tale that evolved into a book series and continues to be adapted to several formats, titles and languages.
The Series UTOPIA, shows us the world of the neo-Shambhalans who tell the story of the Hybrid throughout 6 episodes as their life unfolds inside a tepui where the survivors migrated during the nuclear holocaust.
Genre specificities: Magic realism is part of the Science Fiction umbrella, but it is rooted in a plausible reality with social criticism overlays.
Contemporary Comparable Series: Station Eleven (2021); The Rain (2018);
Opportunities to Join the cast and crew (above and below the line):
Series: Utopia, Episode 1-6
Company: TAT Productions is looking to engage several professional and student filmmakers who wish to be a part of Utopia to help us produce a few new scenes (the future) and a new cut with special effects in 2023.
Roles:
Director, Assistant Editor, Video Editor with FX experience, Producer, Wardrobe and Set designer, Illustrator, Marketing strategist.
For more information call or text Producer/Writer Angela Terga (786) 768-1455. Send email to info@angelaterga.com.
Notice:
TAT Productions is a SAG-AFTRA Producer of student and feature films. All cast and crew associated with SAG-AFTRA membership requirements will receive credits.
Filmmaker’s Bio:
T.A. Terga, “Angela” is a life-long rebel teacher who wanted to learn filmmaking and writing so she ended up a guerilla filmmaker and self-published author. After getting an MFA in Screenwriting and an MS in Media Management, she realizes the best degree is a hands-on experience.
Her stories are multicultural with future/past unfolding of unlikely sheroes, of survival, evolution, and enlightenment.
To order her books, visit: https://www.bitlylinks.com/RBZvI-6nI
To subscribe to Angela Terga's Blog visit: https://www.angelaterga.com/social-critique-author-teacher-me-too-woke
Act 2 - The Blog of Angela Terga Presents:
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF AN IDEA: From tall-tale-to-series
You are invited to attend the screening of "Hybrid," Episode 1 of the nuclear post apocalyptic survival series, Utopia, for a special showcase of film at Ft. Lauderdale Art & Design Week's 1st Filmmakers Showcase. This free event is held at Savor Cinema. the red carpet event at 7, movies begin at 8 PM. See above.
How does a story evolve from a quick tall tale to a film short, a novel, a book and streaming series, a graphic novel, a video game, and a comic book, yet keep its original story plot intact?
One such tall tale now celebrating its tenth anniversary, is the 49 minute film series pilot, HYBRID, which is having a screening in its home, Ft. Lauderdale's Arts Theatre Savor, previously Paradiso, where the film's debut took place before it was adapted to series or even published as a book.
"Hybrid" premiered as "Spyderwoman" on March 22, 2013. Since then, the story has metamorphosed into a book series and has been adapted to different screen formats. However, through it all, yes, the tale of the spiderwoman remains intact.
She, Taharai, the spider woman was born to the Yanomami people in the Amazon Basin between Venezuela and Brazil. But she didn't have to cross the border to get here. She was kidnapped, captured, forced to be a lab rat.
THE SCREENING OF HYBRID WILL TAKE PLACE DURING FT LAUDERDALE ART AND DESIGN WEEK (FTLADW)'S 1ST ANNUAL FILMMAKER'S SHOWCASE ON THE 23 OF JANUARY.
FOLLOW THIS LINK TO GET TICKETS.
THE EVOLUTION OF A STORY: FROM ROMANCE TO VISIONARY
AN UNUSUSAL COVER ART
By the way, not apologetically, IF you are one of those people who cringe to nudes unless they're Greek or Roman art, the cover of the first publication of Spiderwoman is an original painting by Calle Ocho Artist Carmelo Prado who is a "naíve" artist who exposes natural environments including people in their purest form.
This first edition of the story is based entirely on the hybridized human and doesn't include the future Shambhalans telepathic and astral travel technique. It only narrates the saga of an outcast hybrid being whose longing for human contact leads her to civilization. Of course, as an outcast, this contact came from outsiders who went to exploit the rainforest lands.
This cover depicts a second painting by Carmelo Prado the Calle Ocho Artist, in which the silhouette of a woman and the glistening light of a spiderweb silk intertwine. It feels like the dance of the spider woman, a ritual Taharai followed during the hunt on full moon nights.
The next version includes the future but not as developed, yet. The survivors were only starting out and the Spider Woman had not been rescued. We don't know what will happen to the world yet. Legends From the Future: Spiderwoman Taharai-an Amazon Legend.
Legends went on an expansion phase and is now a multi format series. In its storytelling evolution, it has been adapted to many formats. Telling the story from an omniscient point of view, the holocaust of humanity became a writing challenge. How and where would survivors make it? NO cover art on this one.
Then... on one of those bike rides, the beginning came to fruition in the imagination and later black and white.
UTOPIA was born. A perfect being, one that lives in consciousness and aware, She is the product of training in detachment, surrender, and love.
The Amazon Rainforest again becomes the setting for the survivors of the nuclear apocalypse. The jungle would survive the blasts—part of it would. In case of a nuclear apocalypse, would you bet on the survival of the rainforest?
Series Synopsis
The story awakens humanity to the possibility of a society based on the principles of Shambhala where there is no competition or leadership. No authority. No rules. Only applied principles in connection with the natural environment guide the survivors. The neo-shambhalans' values are open ended and inclusive, non judgmental, and based on love and compassion.
A non-stealing society as such means there is no personal property to envy. The need to survive against the world by acquiring and storing has been replaced with the feeling of belonging reminiscent of the ancient civilizations of the Americas.
Namely, the Yanomami of the Amazon Rainforest, Taharai the Hybrid's people, inspire the neo-Eden concept of creation found in Utopia. If everything belongs to everybody, will there be a need to take or have more? Of course, the world has ended so the survivors have no choice but to shed the old skin and grow a new one. Evolution costs us. Knowledge hurts.
Instead of a materialistic society the neo-Shambhalans have no other recourse given their location in a Tepui—the only place left on earth where oxygen exchange continued to take place.
Theirs would be a conscious society developing mind powers and achieve greater capabilities than ever imagined, including advanced telepathy and astral travel techniques.
How does Hybrid the spider woman from the Yanomami fit into the neo Shambhalans UTOPIA?
Mental powers develop through practice. During evening camp-act, the neo-Shambhalans share a meal, chit chat about their day and "tune in" telepathically for the night as they vicariously witness the exploits of Taharai the Hybrid spider woman who wreaked havoc in the cities of the modern world before the eco tomb.
In turn, the potential power of Taharai's story power is in fathoming a simply pure being for she is neither good not bad, a non-dualistic parahuman. She follows her instincts and kills to survive but her greatest wish is to become a fully conscious woman.
Check Out Contemporary Books of Post-Apocalyptic Sci-fi and Utopian stories:
Is Agartha or Shambhala, also known as Shangri-la a real place in the Himalayas where there once existed a magical land of non-duality?
To learn more about telepathy and astral travel read the experts in extrasensory perception.
Act 3
THE HOLISTIC WRITING PROCES EXPLAINED:
The jest of ANY Story doesn't just jump at writers from an ideation unless you are writing formulaically. While, good versus evil and good cop/bad cop, stories of dualism have been proven to be commercially sound, they may lack the freshness of non dual creativity.
In holistic writing the evolution of the protagonist can develop throughout the story as the main character traverses the new world into which they are cast.
Immersive storytelling: A story develops along the way.
Such has been the case with Utopia, the book, Hybrid the series pilot, Spyderwoman the first film, and Legends from the Future, aka Spiderwoman Taharai, the original tall tale. The plot developed over time just like the being on which it was inspired.
Getting to the crux of the problem?
In the end, Utopia is a wake-up call to humanity—one of many but never enough. In each version there is a slight difference that the format itself demands. Such is the case in every adaptation. A version doesn't have to include adaptations of format. Adapting to format requires being able to write for a specific purpose of which visual is the most adaptable to any medium. Visual writers are not just screenwriters but all writers who master the art of "show don't tell."
This time the story tells itself by creating a "brave new world" built by the survivors of a plausible nuclear holocaust where there are no rules—only principles, a true utopia.
However, the neo-Shambhalan society in their infant stages has zero ideological competition, not yet, anyway.
Where was Hybrid shot?
Not shot with a gun, no, that doesn't happen until the end when bad cop vs good cop fight over the survival of the Hybrid. The film was shot in people's homes, at city parks, in medical offices, at the NSU Biology lab, on the streets of Overtown, at North Beach, in Hollywood, at a Brickell Restaurant, in the Shops at Sunrise, at the Art Gallery Artopia, a Jazz Club—all located between Broward and Dade counties
The cast and crew involved with the project's first film phase may recall its origins as the story of an innocent hybridized human from the confines of the rainforest, an outcast of her people running rampant from Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood to Miami after escaping from the Lab at NSU, a favorite location.
Are there previous versions?
Yes, go back in time several years to the moment of the story's creation. Before producing the short film, Spiderwoman (7 min.), at MIU, in Miami/FT Lauderdale and before the 49 minute version was premiered as Spyderwoman at Cinema Paradiso—a product of guerrilla filmmaking, way before these films, there was...
....just a Tall Tale.
The fact is that the original short story titled Spiderwoman started as an oral story-time tall tale told by a teacher in a 4th grade classroom after lunch to get things to quite down. It's a good time to hear each other's tall tales.
However, the backstory is that it was inspired by the true account of a romance that was lost to the Amazon Rainforest during the late 70s.
Writing as therapy works!
In its fabric —(a story is what Carol King suggests, a Tapestry)—was the feeling of awe that the Amazon Rainforest inspires. Having grown up listening to Carol King's songs may have made the author a natural (holistic) writer.
So, the story goes...
There once was a girl from America and a guy from Brazil whose destinies crossed when they met in Caracas. He went on to plant coffee in the Amazon and she to teach school in America.
Then what happened? She became obsessed with saving the Amazon and he to exploit it. In the end, the Amazon triumphed. And when the lovers met again, they were strangers to each other. By then the spider woman fantasy had already been written and premiered.
Perhaps the rainforest has the power to heal itself as marimbeiros and other exploiters presume, but the speed with which it is being consumed is destroying that knowledge as it ceases to evolve naturally, without being raped by man-king's ego.
Why the Hybrid being?
There are some interesting tales of spontaneous hybridization (organic magic beings) similar to Taharai, a venomous hybridized human, in the folklore of the native inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest. Visualizations of the creature came in spurts and were embraced by the imagination creating opportunities for character, place, and plot to form and develop.
Is creative manifestation for ego satisfaction or a greater cause?
Visionary writing is writing that has a purpose. Writers may not discover it until they separate themselves from the story and witnessing its impact—it organically warns and inspires, motivates change, and exposes truth.
As the creator shares the vision, the story guides readers and viewers to take up causes and shows how the world can be steered one way or another. It reveals the need to understand, to act, to believe—not judge and command. It is a process of self discovery.
Only to honor such creed is the job of a creator!
Resolution
Utopia Opportunities for Filmmakers and Actors:
To be part of the production team, crew and cast of Utopia, the series that will shock the world with a zen future and organically hybridized human diversity, you must be between 18-35 years old, be coursing a bachelors, trade school or high school program dedicated to the arts or media, and have a portfolio with proof of experience.
The project, Utopia, is ready to expand into video game, graphic novel, and comic book formats. If you are an illustrator, submit a pencil sketch of the main character, Taharai, the Hybrid—a natural woman with parahuman abilities.
Directors, Illustrators, Wardrobe designers, Video Editors, Producers, and Animators: send your resume (include headshot) and a letter of intention to: info@angelaterga.com explaining why you want to be part of Utopia and your experience in the field.
A unique opportunity to create a film cooperative following the showcase is available to all interested parties in the filmmaking arena.
Thank you for your attention and interest in celebrating new voices in film and literature.