HEART FORCE
Limited Series
exotic - adventure - mystic - intimate - conspiracy - controversial - shamanic - uplifting
In this standalone prequel to TEN%MAX, a renegade Berkeley scientist plunges into a transformative love affair with a mystic mystery woman who is fighting a secret biotech team plotting to manipulate the thoughts and moods of world leaders. Mixing live-action with magnificent animation, Heart Force is a wild lucid tale of love and discovery, combining ‘white-coat terrorist’ mind-manipulation, a lurking edge of ancient Mayan prophecy, plus radical plunges into mature romance.
This fast-action odyssey introduces an almost-mythic half-Mayan hero named Mahalena Bernhardt who is right now fighting her brother and his genius tech-partner Ursula and their malicious intent. They’re in position to pacify select populations through dangerous microwave neuro-attack broadcasts, using subtle tech force to transform human attitudes and behavior.
But even a quick look at the nightly news shows that our world is seriously out of balance in macho-male power-grab directions. Throughout humanity’s history, dominant male traits have ruled for countless generations while the more feminine, intuitive, mystic and nurturing dimensions have been pushed down, denigrated and persecuted.
Our Hollywood super-heroes, including the female ones, are still overly violent and macho. We clearly need a new grown-up mythic hero, a tough but at least somewhat awakened woman who is fully living her liberated/intuitive vision – and ready to put her life on the line to provoke positive change. Mahalena Bernhardt is this new hero – and Heart Force is her deadly but ultimately triumphant story. In the heat of a terrific action plot, unfolding from Silicon Valley down to Guatemala, Mahalena (Mahee for short) continually provokes Jack, her new lover, to let go and trust his more-intuitive instincts, as they love and fight side by side for what they believe is the higher good of humankind.
Battling against confused Google execs and deviant CIA operatives, greedy Washington politicos and nasty Guatemalan police, our heroes also manage to lighten up here and there during six hour-long episodes, as they explore deep realms of mature romance. In the process they discover a unique male-female resonance that might also breathe new passion into our own relationships.
Heart Force is quite openly a mystic tale rather than a traditional action film. Even its cinematography is distinct, with a touch of CG animation transforming many scenes into a slightly-otherworldly ambiance. Mahalena is utterly real and yet also somehow believably transcendent. Her twin brother, Bernardo Bernhardt, is her opposite – he’s a serious bad guy who thinks he’s the good guy. He and his partner Ursula intend to save the world using neurotech equipment that alters a person’s (or a community’s) mood and mindset – supposedly in more peaceful humanitarian directions. But look out – he’s willing to kill even his twin sister in order to achieve this supposedly benevolent goal.
This limited series is sometimes horrific - but it's definitely not a horror film. The story ranges from brutal to revelatory, mixing hot action thrills with tender/tough humor and romance – and also some startling inner breakthroughs. Grounded in hard-nose reality and yet at times subtly transcendent, the plot is designed to shock and provoke … but also to uplift and inspire. In this sensitive post-feminist advancement of the traditional suspense genre, viewers are challenged to take the ‘a la nueva’ Heart Force leap into a more hopeful vision of our shared future.
This series is bound to stoke controversy. Its audience will be mostly secular, intelligent and progressive – people hungry for inspiring adventures that pack a meaningful twist. The series doesn’t preach any party line – instead, it exposes looming ethical and action choices we all might soon face – and then lets the drama play out to a stunning climax. Grounded in core human values that all cultures hold in common, Heart Force aims to present both sides, and then provoke deep viewer discussions of humanity’s emerging choices.
Mahee is definitely controversial – she openly stands up for what she thinks is right and good. Coming from a mixed heritage of European macho dominance and timeless indigenous wisdom, even in the midst of overt action-adventure she keeps dipping into more subtle but equally-exciting intimate explorations. Regularly pushing her lover Jack into unexpected, almost occult feelings and realizations, she keeps shifting the plot in peculiar and sometimes quite revelatory directions.
Heart Force is aimed specifically at a fast-growing audience that’s hungry for entertainment but also for unusual romance mixed with intelligent uplifting dialog. Not to be confused with dreamy New Age fluff, this series uses cinema to inspire us to shift into a more mature intuitive approach to relating, and to solving our outmoded world dilemmas. In each Heart Force episode our gutsy male hero, Jack, must struggle to transcend his liberal but still quite macho attitudes as he taps into Mahalena’s new approach to passion and personal power, resulting in a believable tale of love and discovery that multiple audiences will embrace and learn from.