Europa
Short Film
Project Type: Non-Fiction/Short Film
Project Status: Post - Production
Writer/Director: Jacqueline Elyse Rosenthal
Producers: Tom Thudiyanplackal, Erik Weaver, Christina Lee Storm, Tingting Lyu, Shannon Morrall
Project Email: Jacqueline.director@gmail.com
LOGLINE
On a future mission to Jupiter's moon Europa to extract water for Earth, one astronaut must choose between nature and humanity.
SYNOPSIS
The year is 2300. Three astronauts are the chosen ones on the first manned mission to Jupiter's moon, Europa. Yvette Price is different - she's always felt different from others at her company Red Discovery, a privatized space corporation with the role of seeking alternative colonies and resources for humanity's existence.
Yvette is the only oceanographer on the mission and thus she has intense pull to this mission of being the first human to endeavor to extract water from Europa's core, as a potential harvested life source for Earth - where there is not enough clean water to sustain the population.
However, when they land, Yvette questions if she is losing her mind because the water is calling to her, speaking to her, and it knows her by name.
As they land and navigate to the drilling source, Yvette begins to doubt their right to this capitalist mission and recognizes that Europa doesn't trust their general presence there. As she touches the ground, the moon parts for her, and she is suspended into space and claimed by a massive geyser, that swallows her to its core.
As she awakens, surrounded by darkness and silence, the cave illuminates - showing an ocean as far as the eye can see. The ocean greats her with familiarity, and offers her a premonition of what will happen if she returns with the test sample of it's water - humans will destroy Europa as they have destroyed their own planet and oceans. Toxic waste, animal deaths, and human indifference.
Yvette professes that even she is a threat, and as a tsunami begins to conquer her, it dissipates and spares her - recognizing some humans can be trusted - and we must learn to share.
As she levitates back with the test sample in hand, Yvette decides to drop it back down, prioritizing we fix our own planet before we feel entitled to others.
She returns to the ship and makes a quiet vow to Europa to stay where man is intended and to continue to play her part.
MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT
Europa was created to support the ocean, and environmentalism, and warn against blind colonization of other planets and moons. We throw our support behind scientists and activists, while cautioning against the dangers of private organizations and companies laying claim to foreign entities.
Commercial space laws are very unclearly defined and have caused some concern amongst smaller communities. With this film, we aim to start these conversations and continue to allow important mankind decisions to be in the capable hands of credible humanitarian organizations, that do not have an aim for private gain.
Additionally, this film is a call to climate awareness and justice, and a call to action for us to recognize our own global footprint - and soon our universe footprint, as frightening as that sounds, we are not far away from having to consider these things.
And I'd like to get ahead of it, for my children's generation.
Jacqueline Elyse Rosenthal
Director
Jacqueline Elyse Rosenthal is a DGA Grand Prize & Student-Emmy winning writer-director-activist, known for her film BACKLOG (Cannes official selection), which is currently being packaged as a feature.
After adapting the short, the BACKLOG feature script won Stage 32 and Catalyst Studios’ Empowering Women Script Competition. Most recently, she wrapped a 31-day shoot at SONY Studios for her sci-fi epic, Europa, a film she wrote and directed about a privatized space mission.
The film was produced by ETC (Emerging Technology Center), SONY, and Pixomondo. Jacqueline's nine short films have all landed distribution, and she has been contracted by production companies throughout the world to direct shorts, features, and branded content. She is an alum of the Creator’s Playlab Fellowship, the Fox Fellowship, The Athena Writer’s Lab, Stowe Story Labs, and was honored in 2021 by the United Nations Development Programme.
She holds an MFA in Film Production from USC and is represented by 3 Arts Entertainment, Culture Creative Entertainment, and Del Shaw.