Xolenia

2020 MIPTV Creative Talent Pitch Official Selection

Created by
Bora Ömeroğlu

Story

Set in the ‘90s United States, a dark, religious, secret society is about to wage a full-blown war against the tyrannical US government. This is a war for which they have been preparing for over thirty years. And they have a plan, it’s called Xolenia…

Writer’s Vision

In many ways, the ‘90 in the United States were the best of times; rising hope and prosperity, relative peace in the world, a revolution in digital technologies… On the other hand, workers’ wages decreased, jobs were shipped overseas, and, in many ways, the foundations were laid for today’s immense divide between the super-rich and everyone else.

As we stand on the brink of the 4^th Technological Revolution, things are not looking that much different. Due to advances in automation and artificial intelligence, it’s easily projected that millions more people around the world will lose their livelihoods in the very near future.

As an artist who grew up in Turkey, I witnessed first-hand how the little and highly dysfunctional democracy that we had, has been so easily hijacked by a very small but organized group of people.

By creating this series as an outsider, I’d like to open a window to the ‘90s United States – to the time when the political debates were still comparably sane, inequalities in society were still surmountable, and the system overall was still working for the majority of its citizens.

By connecting the story to the actual political debates of the decade, I want to draw parallels to the present-day political climate, exposing how far we’ve come since the ‘90s and how little things have changed.

In the same way that Homeland is more than a spy thriller, but a balanced discourse on US foreign policy. Xolenia isn’t merely an action thriller about a secret society taking on the US government, but a time capsule and a carefully designed critique of the American Experiment in a decade that was filled with hope and missed opportunities.

Today, as the gap between rich and poor widens and authoritarian figures all around the world begin to rise… there is an imminent debate coming up about the future of our democracies:

Are governments an instrument of good? Or, is self-interest our only priority?

Is there something bigger that we want to reach for, together?

Or are we all on our own?

Pitch Deck