Jeffrey Thomas wins Future Vision XPRIZE for sci-fi film

Jeffrey Thomas, performing under the name Jeff Synthesized, has won the Future Vision XPRIZE with his story ‘The Gifted’. The international science fiction filmmaking competition, which featured over 2,500 entries, awarded a total of more than $3.5 million in prizes.

‘The Gifted’ follows an eleven-year-old boy who uses artificial intelligence to reconstruct his deceased mother using her voice, journals, and text messages. The AI entity manifests on phones throughout a county, prompting fear from authorities while attempting to help citizens care for one another.

The competition was driven by the XPRIZE Foundation, Peter Diamandis, Google, and Range Media Partners. It aimed to move away from dystopian narratives by encouraging filmmakers to envision hopeful futures where humanity can navigate technological transformation and collective prosperity.