"She's a pretty interesting person in her own right," said Bruce Duncan, a professor with a film background.
He was teaching at the University of Vermont about three years ago when he began scouting around for a new project. He spotted an ad on Monster.com for a managing director position with the Bristol-based Terasem Movement Foundation, one of two organizations Rothblatt created to carry out her plans. He scored the job.
In September, he was on assignment at the International Film Festival in Toronto looking for a film distributor ("All world rights are still available," he said) for Rothblatt's movie, TransBeMan. He also shopped the film in Cannes, France, and hopes to show it at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, along with the Berlin International Film Festival.
"Because of her business, she's always interested in the leading edge of where technology and biology and computer sciences is going," said Duncan, a recent convert to Rothblatt's way of thinking. He happily admits it's all intriguing, even if the premise sounds a little odd.
Though technology is already merging with biology through artificial limbs attached to nerves and the like, a complete merger is definitely still a science-fiction kind of concept. Rothblatt, 53, seems to understand this.
TransBeMan is described as a "post-modern fable about the world's first Bio Electric Hybrid Human, society's reaction and the emergence of 'Fleshism' as a new form of racism." It stars James Remar (Dexter) and Kevin Corrigan (TV's The Black Donnellys). It's meant to be entertaining, but also educational. "Advance copies of the film for critics and industry professionals should be available by the end of the month, Duncan said.
The media-shy Rothblatt declined to talk on these topics, saying she spends less than 1 percent of her time on the issues, though she's invested more than $1 million in them by funding the foundation, according to 2006 tax records.
Instead, she designated Ray Kurzweil her spokesman. He's on the board of directors at United Therapeutics and producing/directing a movie version of his most recent book - The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology - through one of Terasem's many divisions.
He "is extremely credible, more engaged than me & Im totally in sync with him," she said in a message sent from her iPhone.
