What Remains, Genesis

Early in 2048, What Remains, Genesis imagines a near future where Google owns most of the planet and has developed an application that promises a form of digital immortality. At first the service is restricted to a wealthy, male elite who can buy extended life in code, but a band of hackers steals the program's source and releases it to the public. The film follows the immediate ripple effects, combining interviews, staged reconstructions, and archival material to show how social order, economic privilege, personal identity, and political life are affected when death can be outsourced to servers. It keeps outcomes vague and avoids major spoilers, concentrating on the ethical, legal, political, and social questions that rise when the meaning of mortality shifts.

Directed by Lou Fauroux and released in 2023, the documentary mixes contemporary interviews, archival clips, and carefully staged dramatized sequences. It features notable appearances by Gio Ventura, Melanie Courtinat, Khloé Kardashian, and Mark Zuckerberg, blurring lines between documentary and speculative narrative.

What Remains, Genesis played a slate of film festivals and saw a limited theatrical run before moving to streaming platforms. Its commercial footprint was modest, with most attention coming from online discussion and curated screenings rather than wide box office.

Critical response has been uneven but engaged. Reviewers and commentators have focused on the movie's interrogation of power, the ethics of commodified immortality, and questions about access, consent, and surveillance. Some praised its provocative premise and assembly of voices, while others noted an uneven balance between reporting and speculative dramatization.

Despite not being a mainstream hit, the film prompted debate on social media and in technology circles about corporate control over life-extension technologies. It generated think pieces on ethics and policy, and became a talking point at several panel discussions about regulation, privacy, and the social costs of privatized immortality.