Mackenzie Davis and Rupert Friend Lead a Mind-Bending Sci-Fi Drama at Venice

Lili Horvat’s audacious new film My Notes on Mars premiered in the Venice Days lineup, presenting a cerebral sci-fi story about a couple whose marriage is strained by divergent passions. Canadian actress Mackenzie Davis portrays Margot Fogal, a once-promising planetary-science researcher who abandons her career to join her Hungarian-born husband Sam, played by British actor Rupert Friend, in rural Hungary. After a hiking excursion in the Alps ends with Margot’s apparent disappearance, she inexplicably returns with amnesia, prompting a surreal investigation into the nature of self and affection.

The screenplay weaves grief, mathematical obsession and uncanny doppelgänger motifs, supported by authentic scientific props consulted by MIT scholar Gaia Stucky de Quay. The film’s cast also includes Szabolcz Thuroczy, Zoltan Gyongyosi and others, and it is produced by a coalition of European companies such as Poste Restante and ZDF/Arte.