Your Final Meditation
Experimental
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11-Aug-2025
Isolated in her warehouse apartment in an escalating state of anxiety, a young woman plays a virtual reality guided meditation game. Corey Hughes directs “Your Final Meditation,” an immersive featurette embarking into an open world of evolving fantasy environments. Powered by “Transcend Corporations,” the game utilizes an A.I. algorithm to adapt its gameplay to its user’s emotions. Exhaling and inhaling determines in-game movements and memories from the past generate seeds for new worlds. The gameplay—twelve levels of various biomes and emotionally challenging tasks—begins innocently but ramps up to vivid extremes as it pushes its players toward their ultimate goal: transcendence. Wearing her headset, Jodiiie engages with everything from stone tablets, knights wearing chain mail, and mutations into the insect-form. For brief moments, she removes the goggles and tries to tune into the real world. She sends out an invite for a backyard bonfire but as the day continues, it doesn’t seem like anyone is planning to come. The reality of loneliness weighs heavier, and the game increasingly envelopes Jodiiie into its world. Observed mostly through the game’s first person POV, we spend most of the film as if we were playing alongside Jodiiie herself, somehow also reaching an uncanny state of calm. We've featured Hughes several times over the years, dating back to 2016 with his Carnival Cruise set, "Ouchiemongo". -JM. Director: Corey Hughes Cast: Hanna Olivegren.
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