Private Project

Vesna: Severance of Lineage

In a world where truth is erased, one woman's AI creations become a powerful voice of resistance.

Year 2056 - Global war has broken out and gone nuclear. Oslo is destroyed. Bergen is one of many front lines, a city partially intact, trying to function while weathering the chaos of shifting control. Tiril, a former baker turned war synthographer, uses her AI tool @Titian_NG to document resistance fighters' stories without exposing their identities to the oppressive regimes hunting them. Operating in the liminal space between digital memory and state erasure, her technology becomes both witness and creator, challenging the occupying regime and fueling the fire of revolution.

  • Kate Ryan Brewer
    Director
    Knots: A Forced Marriage Story, Murder King, As It Concerns Kyiv
  • Kate Ryan Brewer
    Writer
  • Cody Gallo
    Producer
    The Lengths, Fort Bliss
  • Kate Ryan Brewer
    Producer
    Knots: A Forced Marriage Story
  • Timothy Ryan Driscoll
    Producer
    Beyond the Fog, Belle Isle, The Itch, The Lengths
  • Eili Harboe
    Key Cast
    "Tiril"
    Succession, Thelma, The Nightmare, Project Z
  • David Eamon Tighe
    Composer
  • Timothy Ryan Driscoll
    Video & Sound Editor
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Sci-fi, AI, Thriller
  • Runtime:
    30 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 30, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    33,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Norway
  • Country of Filming:
    Norway
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    AI, Sony a7 Stills
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Kate Ryan Brewer

Writer / Director

Born in Seattle and raised in Southeast Asia, Kate is an independent writer and director. Her first feature film, “Knots: A Forced Marriage Story,” is an award-winning documentary about forced and child marriage in the U.S. It’s also the subject of her TEDx Talk.She is also a published author, short story writer, and essayist, and has collaborated on several art and media projects, including performing a written piece for WordTheatre in London. She graduated from Florida State University Film School, and completed an intensive acting-for-film course at the Catalyst Institute in Berlin. She has lived and worked around the world.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This is a deeply human story of memory and resistance. Tiril’s journey is one of a “normal” person in “extraordinary” circumstances. Circumstances that are, unfortunately, all too
familiar today: war, misinformation, bearing witness. Tiril starts as a baker and ends up becoming a revolutionary. She goes from a profession that is ancient and earthy to building her own AI image-generating algorithm that she names “Titian NG.” I was fascinated by that trajectory. It contains subtlety. There’s a powerful blend of grief, practicality, and the desire to hold onto identity at all costs. A delicate dance between hope and resignation. Knowing that history is written by the victors, how do the oppressed fight back?

Structurally, using stills with voice-over instead of moving images presents its own unique challenge. While most short films have a standard process from start to finish, the nature of this collaboration blurs those lines. For example, Norwegian actress Eili Harboe brings Tiril to life. The way she inhabits Tiril in her body and her voice will inform the images we develop, since we won’t be watching her onscreen. There are times the imagery closely reflects the story Tiril is telling, and other times the imagery will be abstract. The imagery and sound design inform each other in a similar fashion. I find the tension in those decisions exhilarating.