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Journey to the End of the Night

Six months after a surprise EMP attack, two newly drafted soldiers and a civilian journey to a nuclear missile silo to save the world from enemy drone technology hidden in food that infects and turns people into homicidal monsters called shriekers.

  • Michael Szymczyk
    Director
    SARS-29, Eaters of the Dead, Scent
  • Michael Szymczyk
    Writer
    SARS-29, Eaters of the Dead, Scent
  • VIDART CORP
    Producer
    SARS-29, Eaters of the Dead, Scent
  • Jesrael Leiva
    Key Cast
    "Rogers"
  • Anthony Wrobleski
    Key Cast
    "Price"
  • Payton Lollar
    Key Cast
    "Emily"
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Sci-Fi
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 56 minutes 57 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 1, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    3,000,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Blackmagic Ursa
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • VIDART CORP
    Sales Agent
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights, Internet, Video on Demand, Pay Per View, Ship, Theatrical, Video / Disc, Free TV, Paid TV, Console / Handheld Device
Director Biography - Michael Szymczyk

Michael Szymczyk is an independent filmmaker, philosopher, novelist and photographer from Chicago, Illinois. His first novel Toilet, a literary work about a sentient toilet that is transformed into a person, was translated into Farsi, banned by the Iranian government and is currently a part of the curriculum of several college-level Existentialism courses. He has been featured in The Chicago Sun-Times, The Kansas City Star and Publisher's Weekly, where the author A.J. Jacobs compared a young Szymczyk to the writer Franz Kafka. Michael began producing films at the age of 15 using camcorders and SUPER VHS tapes. He attended film school at Columbia before switching universities to pursue a career in Philosophy with an emphasis on 19th century German Philosophy. During graduate school, he returned to filmmaking when he began filming operas for Lyric Opera of Chicago. His first feature film, SCENT (2011), was inspired by Sartre's NO EXIT and the opera LULU by Berg. He then went on to write, produce and direct EATERS OF THE DEAD (2017), SARS-29 (2020) and JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT (2022). He produces films that explore a variety of philosophical and literary topics as well as anything to do with the nature of time, truth and death. He is currently working on a science documentary THE REALITY OF TIME, which explores how the theory of time has evolved from Plato, Aristotle and St. Augustine to modern thinkers such as Kant, Einstein, Wheeler and Feynman. He is also the author of Atlantis & Its Fate In The Postdiluvian World & Independent Filmmaking 101.

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Director Statement

This film is a statement about how often people rush to judgement, how many ingest information without questioning its validity or truthfulness, and how hate, racial or otherwise, is born from the ignorance of never questioning our assumptions. I also wanted to build a world that serves as a metaphor for obsession and addiction (the well-spring of genius and madness) and combine it with a narrative slightly inspired by Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel 'Voyage au bout de la nuit'. From that, I came up with the idea for this story. Although Journey to the End of the Night may appear to be a run of the mill post-apocalyptic science fiction film, it really is about one character's journey to see the woman he loves again, another character's desire to see her parents, and the abhorrent decisions they make while driven by grief and misinformation. My goal with the film, though, wasn't to create something uniquely tragic, but also cathartic, to speak to those who have lost someone they've loved, while at the same time, bringing to life a world of dreams where anything is possible.