Norman Yi Li, Writer 

Sloan Grant(s) Received: 2024, TIFF, Project Pitch Participant

Project Type: Feature 

Genre: Crime Drama

Length: 90 minutes

Field of Science: Biology

Stage: Development 

Synopsis: 

Morgan is a brilliant mosquito researcher working to eradicate malaria. A committed vegan and mother of two, her career has stalled because she refuses to conduct animal testing on rabbits. When the university threatens to cut her funding unless she complies, she’s faced with an impossible choice: her ethics or her life’s work. Wade, the leader of a radical Animal Liberation Front cell, offers her a third option. He wants her to engineer a strain of mosquitoes that spread Alpha-Gal Syndrome, a condition that makes people allergic to red meat. If everyone became allergic to eating meat, billions of animals would be spared. Morgan refuses to help him engineer a disease, but Wade has another way — He reaches out to Morgan’s daughter, Ash.

Ash is a college sophomore and a passionate animal rights activist — the kind who glues herself to restaurant counters and blocks slaughterhouse trucks. But her efforts feel futile. When Wade offers her a chance to make a real change, she joins his team. One night, she helps torch a slaughterhouse and discovers how powerful sabotage can feel. Wade uses footage of the arson to blackmail Morgan. Desperate to protect her daughter, Morgan agrees to help Wade with creating the Alpha-Gal Mosquitoes — but only if Wade cuts all contact with Ash. Confused by Wade’s sudden silence, Ash takes matters into her own hands. She teams up with two activists she meets online to raid Summerville Farms and set the pigs free. When they arrive, Ash’s new comrades betray her. They tie her to a fence and light the farm on fire. Morgan and Wade arrive just in time to save Ash. On the way out, they rescue a single piglet that escaped the blaze.

Arriving back home, Ash’s younger brother Finn bathes the soot-covered piglet. Beneath the grime, its body is covered in boils and lesions. The next day, Finn is burning with fever. At the hospital, doctors discover that he’s been infected with a lethal strain of MRSA. Within days, Finn is gone. The family learns Summerville Farms had an MRSA outbreak that killed most of their pigs. So the farm staged the false flag attack to trigger an insurance payout while framing animal rights activists. Ash is consumed with anger and guilt, but Morgan urges her to focus on exposing the truth.

Morgan’s family and Wade’s activist cell track the farm’s CEO, Judson, to the National Meat Conference in Montana. They infiltrate the event and organize an exclusive hunting retreat for top executives. Deep in the woods, Ash confronts Judson at gunpoint and demands a video confession. Judson calls her bluff, daring her to shoot. Morgan steps forward with a vial of cloudy liquid and tells him it contains the same strain of MRSA that killed her son. And she cannot wait for Judson to feel the same pain that Finn had felt before he died. Finally, Judson breaks and confesses. A year later, Morgan and Everett attend Judson’s trial. Even with a conviction, there is no celebration. Their son is dead. In a city park, Ash and Wade release a cloud of Alpha-Gal mosquitoes. If the world will not change, they will force a revolution.