Concrete Mountains (2057, FT)

88th, 2058 (FT) (KC-wide)

199th, 2058 (FT) (KC-wide re-release)

Jam Comney

Filch Bumfluff

Cassie Milliar

Ava Davignini

Eurontoll

Ficko

**Concrete Mountains** (2017, Mt / 2057, FT) is a Juplockitan-Yersvechi-Fickolean drama feature film directed and produced by Pietro Dan Voors and adapted from the book *"Conventional Weapons"* by Carey Saschadrake.

The film is based on the events of the book, and was intended originally to have the same name, before a second rewrite by Dan Voors and Sandro Mondian. The film follows fictional character Carey Muchan, loosely based off Saschadrake, as he navigates his own conscience working for a big corporation with elusive goals.

## Plot

Ethel Brigance is an overseer of corporate strategy, one of the COO’s of a massive company in pre-war Juplockitus, when several major companies, particularly Jophan Media & Tech, ruled the roost. Carey Muchan is one of her chief assistants, powerful in his own right, able to brief others, etc. Brigance or ‘E.B’ is planning some sort of corporate takeover of a company, rhe details are unclear. We follow Muchan as he struggles to organise various calls and get several people to the same meeting. He returns nightly to his girlfriend in their expensive apartment, though we don’t see these scenes.

Muchan is then tasked with dissuading a factory owner from raising whistles by ‘nudging’ him, telling him that money will benefit his life and the alternative will ruin him. Muchan successfully convinces the would-be whistleblower to relent. A few days later EB is in a meeting with the individuals whose time Muchan organised. The words are inaudible to him but EB gives him a look. Afterwards, Muchan finds out the whisteblower has killed himself, and EB gives him a flying congratulations.

A coworker briefs Muchan on more things he needs to do, this time for her as part of something EB wants. Muchan has a passing interaction with the CEO and Chairman, Maurie Caroll, who is powerful and intimidating in many ways, but mostly by virtue of just being such a powerful figurehead. Muchan gets on with tasks, which appear to involve sending out emails for a convention and helping to organise it with some others, one of whom is aggrieved by EB’s plans, which are still not clear to the viewer, nor to Muchan.

The convention/conference appears to be coming together, and public backlash is rising to the company’s ‘illicit deals’ . A protestor eggs Muchan as he leaves his house. We see him cleaning himself in his apartment and studying himself in the mirror, including his tiredness.

The office appears in panicked disarray as they ready for the convention. The executives are not there, but subordinates relay information that EB, Caroll, and the executives are in ‘important meetings’ on the upstairs floors of the building. Others seem to be making phonecalls trying to find information, or else making plans for the convention, or hedging plans to potentially call it off. The coworker from before, Idina, tells Muchan than he will be needed to find several documents. He travels through the convention area, being set up for the following day, and through many floors in one long shot, and eventually to the documents store, where he looks stressfully through a large bunch of documents for the relevant ones. Unable to find EB, he returns them to Idina.

The convention itself is an excess of food and drink, a veritable circus. There are many people about complaining of the excess, from a fiscal perspective; organisers and such. A party of protestors storms in as Muchan watches on, for several minutes they parade around or destroy objects and shout their chants and decry lost freedoms. Muchan appears unsure what to make of it, but is troubled. Several others, seemingly working at the same level as Muchan, with whom he is sharing a drink, remark at their perplexion and uncertainty in how they feel. Collectively they put togethr an idea of what EB has planned. Most of the protestors are forcefully barred, with a few exceptions, some of them sit to listen. Muchan is beckoned by EB, who sits at the panel. EB rebuffs the attempts of another to talk to her, the other clearly perturbed. She asks Muchan to ‘gauge the temperature’ and seems unfazed by Muchan’s uncertain response. The panel, including EB, does their talk, which involves announcing that they will be taking over hundreds of small factories and small companies as part of a push to globalise their munitions operations. Muchan begins to piece together with the aforementioned coworker peers that the crimes they are responsible for in producing universally banned munitions will be covered up as a favour to the government, and may yet still be produced. Thousands will also lose their jobs. EB’s words still come.

In the aftermath, Muchan decides to confront EB, albeit meekly, but EB shrugs him off with slight annoyance. Muchan returns home to a dark, bare house. His girlfriend gets in and he hugs her, she consoles him.

## Production

Production for the film began in 2055 (FT). The film was to be set and filmed in Juplockitus, where the events of the story took place, and where the author was from. Dan Voors was required to make numerous concessions, including an early release of the film in Juplockitus, in order to film there in some of the same or similar locations to those in the plot, which were based on real locations. Dan Voors also received express permission to film by the Juplockitan government, who twice halted filming due to "potentially sensitive material".

The film was written and subsequently edited in Yersvesch, where Dan Voors is from.