Five years ago, on April 10, 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope — a matrix of radio observatories situated around the world that turn the Earth into one giant radio telescope — captured something incredible: The first-ever image of the hollow depths of a black hole.

The clear, almost simplistic image provides the strongest evidence that black holes actually exist and that they match what theoretical physicists predicted. Now, astronomers are attempting something even more surreal: The first-ever movie of a black hole.

More than 400 scientists are now collaborating on the next generation of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). EHT has set a goal of making the video by 2026.

Halfway into my interview with director Bertrand Bonello, he quickly replies to my question about whether the pivotal purification machines, featured in his latest sci-fi film The Beast, benefit or destroy humanity.

“In 2044, there’s no more catastrophe. You are not even scared. So, this perfect world is a kind of nightmare. It’s on purpose, as with AI, there’s no more problems. The world we see is not the world in which we live,” Bonello tells Inverse, highlighting the film’s contemporary and not-so-distant future mechanisms.

The Beast is a loose adaptation of the 1903 romantic short story The Beast in the Jungle, penned by Henry James. In the film, Gabrielle (a tremendous Léa Seydoux) hesitates in going through a purification machine as she worries that she can no longer love the man of her dreams. If she proceeds, she will not have any emotions and earlier memories.