Interview By Paul Salfen, Text by Christine Thompson for AMFM Magazine
In O Horizon, a brilliant young neuroscientist mourning the sudden loss of her father discovers a revolutionary new technology that lets her speak with him again. What begins as a miraculous second chance quickly forces her to question everything—her relationships, her life’s work, and the very boundaries between healing and intrusion. Written and directed by Emmy Award winner Madeleine Rotzler, the film stars Oscar nominees Maria Bakalova as Abby and David Strathairn as her father, with Adam Pally delivering a sharp turn as the tech entrepreneur behind the innovation. Blending magic realism, sci-fi, and raw human emotion, O Horizon arrives in theaters this summer (June 12 in New York, June 19 in Los Angeles) as one of the most thought-provoking indie dramas of the year.
AMFM Magazine sat down with the cast to unpack the film’s timely premise. The conversation was as honest and layered as the movie itself—touching on personal loss, the ethics of AI “resurrection,” and what any of us might actually do if given the chance.
Adam Pally didn’t hesitate when asked how the story affected him. “The one thing it did for me was kind of really bring pause to the idea that I would ever want to talk to a version of someone I love that has passed,” he said. “It seems very intrusive to me—to both the person and the relationship that you have. On some level, it’s gratifying because you hear their voice and you feel the warmth a little bit. But on the other level, you almost feel tricked by it.”
Maria Bakalova, whose vulnerable performance anchors the film, admitted she leans the other way. “I’m scared to disagree with Adam because knowing myself, I feel like [I’d] reach to this technology and experience it myself,” she shared. “I don’t know which might take me to an unusual place and unusual feeling that might be worse than in the beginning.” Still, she praised Rotzler’s script for refusing easy answers: “It doesn’t point a finger that this is necessarily wrong… It lets the audience decide for themselves how they feel about this.” For Bakalova, the story ultimately lands on the side of healing. “At the end of the day, it helps her,” she noted of Abby’s journey.
David Strathairn brought a thoughtful middle ground, echoing both perspectives while adding his own wisdom about grief. “I feel both things—both what Adam said and what Maria said,” he explained. He described grief as “love looking for a place to land” and saw the technology as one more tool humans create to make sense of existence. “The more choices that we create for ourselves in order to connect with either the future and in this case, the past… is great,” he said. Yet he also acknowledged the risks: “It can be very intrusive. And that’s where there maybe has to be some kind of regulation… You can choose to do it or not.” For Strathairn, the beauty of O Horizon is that it honors universal human emotions even as it explores futuristic tech.
The actors also revealed how deeply personal the roles felt. Bakalova drew on her own experiences of missing family members and described the emotional nakedness required for the part—made easier by Strathairn’s on-set presence even during voice-only scenes. “It kind of has to let you be emotionally naked and not hide, which is always the hardest,” she said. Strathairn found the script’s frank handling of loss and incompletion made stepping into the role feel natural. Pally, meanwhile, tapped into the commerce-versus-morals tension of his character: “Where does late-stage capitalism fit in on your morals versus AI?”
O Horizon doesn’t preach. Instead, it invites viewers to wrestle with the same questions the cast did: Would this technology bring comfort or complication? Is it a gift or a trick? In an era when AI is rapidly advancing, the film feels less like science fiction and more like an urgent mirror.
Catch O Horizon in theaters this June and decide for yourself.
