The Congress

The Congress (2013) is a science-fiction drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Ari Folman. Robin Wright plays a version of herself: an aging actress handed a strange offer by her studio. They will scan her completely — face, voice, every emotion — so a digital copy can keep acting forever, on the condition that the real woman never steps on a set again.

Wright signs the deal for her son, who is slowly losing his sight and hearing. Twenty years later she arrives at the studio's futurist congress and crosses into a hand-drawn world where people take a chemical and become whoever they wish. The line between reality and hallucination dissolves. Harvey Keitel appears as her agent, alongside Paul Giamatti and Jon Hamm.

Half live-action, half animation, the second part unfolds as a swirling, psychedelic cartoon, loosely inspired by Stanisław Lem's novel The Futurological Congress. Folman asks what is left of a person once their image is signed away. Stream The Congress (2013) online on iFILM.