WILDsound Festival 1st Scene: SYNNOIA, by Javier Hinojosa Allely (interview)
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4m 54s
After an accident leaves his wife in a coma, Marcos faces a heartbreaking decision when a mysterious company offers to preserve her consciousness inside him. How far is he willing to go to avoid losing her?
https://instagram.com/j_h_allely
CAST LIST:
Narrator: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
Marcos: Geoff Mays
Dr. Vega: Sean Ballantyne
Get to know the writer:
What is your screenplay about?
SYNNOIA is about Marcos, a man devastated by the accident that has left his wife, Eva, in an irreversible coma. A mysterious company offers him the chance to preserve her consciousness inside his own body through an experimental technology. At first, it seems like an act of love: a way to keep her alive and avoid losing her forever. But when Eva awakens inside him, Marcos realizes that love, possession, memory, guilt, and identity have become dangerously intertwined.
The story asks a painful question: if we could keep the person we love with us forever, would that truly be love... or would it become another form of prison?
What genres does your screenplay fall under?
Science fiction, psychological drama, romantic tragedy, and thriller.
It has a speculative science fiction concept, but emotionally it is a tragic love story about grief, obsession, guilt, and the inability to let go.
Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
Because SYNNOIA uses science fiction to explore something deeply human: the fear of losing the person we love. The technology in the story is not just a futuristic device; it becomes a mirror of Marcos' emotional wound.
I believe it should be made into a film because it can create an intimate, unsettling, and emotional cinematic experience with very few locations, strong performances, and a powerful central idea. It speaks about grief, consent, memory, identity, and the dangerous line between love and possession.
It is a story that can make the audience ask themselves: how far would I go to avoid saying goodbye?
How would you describe this screenplay in two words?
Possessive love.
What movie have you seen the most times in your life?
One of the films I have watched the most times is Back to the Future. I love how it combines entertainment, emotion, structure, and imagination with incredible precision. It is a film that feels light and fun, but underneath it has a very solid narrative construction. As a screenwriter, I admire how every detail pays off and how the story uses a fantastic concept to talk about family, identity, and destiny.
How long have you been working on this screenplay?
I have worked on SYNNOIA through several stages of rewriting and refinement. The central idea came from my interest in stories where technology does not solve human pain, but reveals it. I spent a lot of time shaping Marcos' emotional journey: from grief, to hope, to control, and finally to the realization that loving someone also means letting them be free.
How many stories have you written?
I have written several short screenplays and projects as part of my development as a screenwriter, including produced and award-winning short films, several stories connected to the anthology project EDIFICIO 23, and a feature screenplay I am currently developing.
My work often explores emotional wounds, identity, grief, memory, and the need to be seen by another person.
What motivated you to write this screenplay?
I wanted to write a story about grief pushed to the extreme. The question that drove me was: what would happen if someone could keep the person they love alive inside themselves? At first, it sounds beautiful. But then I began to see the horror hidden within that idea.
Because if the other person has no body, no privacy, and no place to exist outside of you... is that still love?
That contradiction became the heart of SYNNOIA.
What obstacles did you face in finishing this screenplay?
The biggest challenge was finding the right balance between science fiction and emotion. I did not want the technology to dominate the story. I wanted the audience to feel that the real conflict was not the capsule, but Marcos' inability to accept loss.
Another challenge was Eva's voice. She had to feel present, human, and emotionally powerful, even though she no longer had a physical body. Her pain, her confusion, and her final truth had to be felt through sound, silence, and Marcos' reactions.
Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
I am passionate about music, design, and visual art. I am interested in anything that can express emotion without needing too many words: an image, a melody, a color, a silence, or a small detail capable of saying more than a long speech.
What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings about the initial feedback you received?
I entered WILDsound FEEDBACK Film and Screenplay Festival because I was interested in its focus on feedback, promotion, and professional script readings. SYNNOIA is a very intimate and emotionally intense screenplay, so I wanted to know how readers outside my own country would respond to its central idea, its characters, and its emotional tension.
Receiving the initial feedback was valuable because it allowed me to look at the screenplay from another perspective. As a writer, it is very important to understand how a story is received by someone who comes to it from outside your own creative process.
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