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SOLAR STORM

Thriller - Development 2023

A solar storm hits the Earth sending a city into chaos and three of its inhabitants on a journey of discovery, pursuit and death.

- Year of production
- 2023
- Genres
- Thriller, Crime, Action/Adventure
- Countries
- BULGARIA
- Languages
- ENGLISH, ENGLISH-UNITED STATES
- Budget
- 50 - + M$
- Duration
- 148 mn
- Writer(s)
- Joe RABL
- Cast
- Joe RABL
- Producer(s)
- Joe RABL (Pelican Pictures), Christian COLLOVÀ, Branko LUSTIG
- Synopsis
- The Sun reaches a climax of activity, massive ejections of matter and electromagnetic radiation are thrown into space…it’s a solar storm and it’s heading towards Earth. As scientists monitor this phenomenon, an event of a different kind is in full swing – the City Mayor’s Re-election Fund-raiser. After Joe (a guitar-playing, reformed petty criminal) gives leftover food to a homeless guy he returns to serve champagne to the great and the glittering good including Eric (a seemingly respectable businessman with a dark mode of operation) and his wife Jasmine (poised on the outside but hiding their abusive relationship & her hopeless outlook)
  
  Joe takes his meagre earnings to a bar to drown his despondency with life and is found by his old friend Shark (a gang leader with a taste for voodoo) He resists the temptation of joining Shark in their old ways with his proposition of robbing a gas station. The city gives way to the slumber of the night except for the increasing excitement of the scientists observing the sun and decision to issue an alert to all agencies.
  
  Dawn breaks and as the Mayor attends a disaster-planning briefing and the news media starts to broadcast information regarding the imminent impact of the solar storm and its possible effects: Joe is threatened with eviction for non-payment of rent and his only possession of value, his guitar, is taken away from him; Inspector Rich Munro (a been-there-seen-it-arrested-it old-school police detective) performs badly on a weapons test and; Jasmine & Eric have breakfast with their bickering conversation changing to a threatening tension between them, despite the presence of her son.
  
  Joe is desperate for money and remembering his conversation with Shark the previous night, steals a gun and decides to rob the gas station. Jasmine is there, filling up after taking her son to school and the Inspector is washing his car on his way home from work. Joe grabs Jasmine and forces the Attendant to hand over the money at gunpoint, the Inspector tries to intervene but has to back down, Joe handcuffs him to the Attendant and escapes by forcing Jasmine to drive her car to get away despite the Inspector’s threat that he will hunt him down.
  
  Eric proves he’s not quite the respectable business man and husband he appears, pimping Jasmine out for cash to the Mayor and putting pressure on Joe’s Landlord to get him his money. The Mayor explores the potential for personal financial gain through exploiting the impending crisis. Jasmine skilfully evades the police in pursuit and takes Joe to a secluded car park. When Jasmine tries to escape, Joe catches her and can’t let her go as he agreed…some kind of connection is growing between them.
  
  Police radios break-up, traffic signals malfunction and a volatile incident involving street people are signs that the ‚Storm is exerting its influence despite the Mayor’s public re-assurances. The robbery is reported on the T.V. news and seen by Shark, he is not happy with what he sees and sets out to find Joe. The Inspector makes it back to headquarters and continues his investigation, despite a rising tension with his team he discovers Joe’s identity and his address as Eric, concerned that Jasmine has missed an appointment, finds out that her car isn’t where it should be.
  
  Joe takes Jasmine to his apartment to hide, evading capture on the subway…they get increasingly close as they share something of their lives and why they feel trapped. Jasmine reveals the abusive nature of Eric, Joe doesn’t know what to do but he does know that he cares for her. The Inspector brings in a S.W.A.T. Team and prepares to raid…Shark is on his way…
  
  The Inspector and S.W.A.T. Team smash into the apartment to the surprise of the couple that live there – it’s Joe’s old address but at the same time Shark arrives at the right address and hammers on the door – Joe, thinking it’s the police, tells Jasmine it’s over and he’s going to escape but she doesn’t want to be left behind. They run over the roof tops and are chased by Shark who wants the money. Joe is shot and he and Jasmine are both hurt in the fight that ensues…Joe loses his gun but they get away, even when they run into a stand-off between police and a violent group of youths, the police actually help them away not realising Joe is wanted as they try to contain the rioters and arrest Shark.
  
  The Inspector tells Eric what’s happened, Eric seems genuinely distraught as the Inspector realises there might be an element of Stockholm Syndrome or even collusion on Jasmine’s part. Eric calls Joe’s Landlord and tells him to find them as the Inspector searches for more information.
  
  After escaping Shark’s gang members Joe and Jasmine hole-up in a hotel. They dress their wounds, they make love and decide to rob Eric and start a new life together. The Landlord and the Inspector, independently track them down as a beautifully strange aurora colours the night-time sky. An electrical surge sets the hotel on fire and they have to avoid the Landlord as they get away through the city – a city on fire in the chaos of full scale riot and looting which increases when the power grid and mobile network fails. They manage to lose the Landlord although the Inspector almost has them cornered – when a satellite crashes into the mayhem…they disappear but the Inspector has a hunch and isn’t giving up his quarry.
  
  At Jasmine & Eric’s apartment, Eric’s presence surprises them, Jasmine shoots him, she picked-up Joe’s gun on the roof, Joe tries to stop her by taking the gun and is caught with it in his hand as the Inspector arrives and arrests Joe.
  
  Joe writes a song for Jasmine in his cell, the Inspector drives home and Jasmine warns her son about the effects of the sun…the effects of a Solar Storm…
  
  Solar Storm" A massive eruption of magnetic, radio and radiation waves are on the way to Earth from the Sun and are about to create more than just electrical disruption; in the course of one day, a city is going to descend into chaos and send some of its inhabitants on a journey of discovery, pursuit and death through the effect on their behaviour by the Solar Storm. "Solar Storm" is a character-driven feature film where the lives of three people coincide as the effects of a solar storm create a dangerous situation of escalating jeopardy. In scenes that alternate between intimate intensity and 'high octane' action sequences the themes of environmental disaster, socio-economic politics, identity and love are explored through the personal circumstances that the characters are forced to confront and deal with.
  
  Solar Storm" A massive eruption of magnetic, radio and radiation waves are on the way to Earth from the Sun and are about to create more than just electrical disruption; in the course of one day, a city is going to descend into chaos and send some of its inhabitants on a journey of discovery, pursuit and death through the effect on their behaviour by the Solar Storm.