As Easy As Closing Your Eyes

As Easy As Closing Your Eyes began with a quote and a question:

"Death is a tragedy... when people speak of losing a part of themselves when a loved one dies, they are speaking quite literally, since we lose the ability to effectively use the neural patterns in our brain that had self-organized to interact with that person." - Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near

Essentially, there is a part of your brain dedicated to each person in your life. There's a part for your mom, a part for your favorite teacher, even a part for that neighbor who’s name you can barely remember. Now, these little areas of our brains are unique because they only light up when we're with the person they're dedicated to. Consequently, these areas also go dormant for the rest of our lives when that person dies. There is literally a part of us that is lost forever when we lose someone we know.

The question was... what if we could get it back?

What if we could actually spend time with that piece of our loved ones that lives within us? What if death was no longer the end of our relationships? What if we could grow old with a lover that was lost, visit our parents in our eighties, or raise a child that passed away? The time we spend with those we love is our most precious treasure and Amesten is the fictional key to unlocking more of it.

As Easy As Closing Your Eyes was developed with the belief that a new fictional technology like Amesten would allow us to explore one of the oldest and most universal human questions from a fresh vantage point. It's a film that asks how far we would go to get more time with the ones we've lost, a film that explores the unanswerable riddle of loving what is mortal.

Love and death have been central to my work throughout my career and, in many ways, my work has been an effort to understand something that I fear. The specter of death has colored much of my experience since my mother was diagnosed with leukemia in my early twenties. It has given me a painfully acute sense of gratitude for the time I have with the ones I love. Everyone I’ve shared this story with has given the same answer when asked if they would take Amesten to see a lost loved one. It’s the same as my own answer, an undeniable “yes”. That dream, that pull into darkness to be with the ones we’ve lost, is a stunning revelation of the human heart.