Please join us for a staged reading of A Computer Simulation of God at the Computer History Museum. It will be the script’s first public performance and is intended to introduce the project to the Silicon Valley community. No need to register for this free event, just come on by and be ready to be entertained!
About the script:
Failed by his Catholic working-class culture, a genius kid creates a computer simulation of God to get some answers to his father's life-threatening illness. This exciting coming-of-age story is set in the mainframe computer industry of the 1960s and combines sharp, fast paced drama with science fiction/fantasy elements.
In 1964, 14 year old RAY NOVAK lives in the shadow of Pittsburgh's roaring steel mills and dreams of becoming a Catholic priest. But when an auto accident sends his milkman father into a vegetative coma, Ray's world starts to unwind. His mother struggles to support the family, his sister runs away with her ne'er-dowell boyfriend, and Ray finds thin comfort in the platitudes of FATHER MALACHI, the parish priest. Then, at the university hospital, Ray runs into DR. DONALD WEISMAN, a Jewish intellectual and scientist who is developing "Beatrice," an early artificial intelligence project running on an IBM360. Escaping his family's dismal reality, Ray discovers a genius for computer science and under Weisman's amused tutelage begins to master the difficult art of computer programming. But Ray oversteps his bounds when, in his search for answers to his father's problems, he takes Weisman's research and turns it into a computer simulation of God. His program escapes on the network and Ray becomes a worldwide celebrity, pitting him against his mentor, the Catholic Church—and God himself.
The screenplay was a semi-finalist at the Big Bear Film International Film Festival Screenwriting Contest and made first cut at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prestigious Norton Screenwriting awards.
Visit http://www.smokypictures.com/about.php to learn more about the Producer, Dave Voda, and Production Manager, Karri O’Reilly.
