Jaroslav Moravec’s ‘Mission Complete’. A girl waiting for a Tinder date is taken down the rabbit hole, imagining her life taking different turns.

The film charts the stream of consciousness of a woman waiting outside a shopping mall for a Tinder date. She keeps waiting, letting her imagination run wild. Nervous about their first date, her dreams and ambitions come to the surface, some of them running very deep. What is she looking for in life? Is romance still relevant in today's world? Are things really so different now than they were three, four, and five centuries ago?

Through the prism of one potential relationship, Mission Complete explores themes of humanity and modernity. In a shopping mall, on a neat suburban street, inside of a golf course, and in the middle of vast agricultural land, the story takes place in utterly modern settings, making you wonder whether it feels utopian or dystopian.

How do we form relationships with other people? Are there places in our ever-busy society where we can find happiness? With so much of our life being turned into a game through apps, don't we all become characters in a computer game? Our deepest desires became our mission objectives, validated by the likes of our internet friends.

At the end, Mission Complete turns its attention to the same existential anxiety that has always been present in our lives. However, this time, it's manifested in the form of two NPCs and a couple of desperately lost Sims 1 characters.

Shot on 35mm film, Jara said for Kodak. “In deciding what medium we will use to translate that fuzzy atmosphere of Mission Complete we decided to go for 35mm for one simple reason. We wanted to balance the virtual reality motives that appear in the film that might feel unrelatable for the audience in its digital nature. The tonality keeps the movie believable and the texture is one of the most important tools to work with. Also, I feel like it's nowadays easier to get people so involved in such a project when you're shooting on film, it just brings a whole new amount of energy to the set.”

Thank you Jara for giving us his trust with this personal piece and to Hamlet & Kode Media for giving us the support. It was truly motivating to have a crew so invested in a project.