The Spanish sci-fi film about S.E.T.I. just had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2022.
In Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of Carl Sagan’s Contact, a single woman discovers a radio signal she believes is evidence of extraterrestrial life. Then for the next two plus hours, she combats every single imaginable force to prove herself and the existence of the signal itself. Now, take that scenario and put it into a single room with a ticking clock. That’s The Antares Paradox.
Alexandra (Andrea Trepat) works for a small S.E.T.I. (Search for Extra Terrestiral Intelligence) group in Spain. One night, she goes into work and finds everything gone wrong, as her equipment’s broken, there’s a huge storm outside, and her father is in the hospital with maybe only hours to live. So, of course, that’s when the thing happens she’s literally be waiting her whole life for: she begins to receive a mysterious signal from space.
That setup alone is intriguing, but writer/director Luis Tinoco gives Alex a ton of additional complications, such as a sister who is guilting her about her father. She’s also got a colleague who is quitting, a boss who’s sleeping during her discovery. And most crucially, there’s only about an hour left before she loses control of the radio telescope that’s receiving the signal. And so Alex must go through all the proper protocols to verify this would-be signal while also battling bureaucracy, calling in every favor she has left, burning bridges, and potentially ruining her entire life just because she believes in this so much.
