"Ex_Machina" will be FOLA's (Friends of Ludlow Auditorium) next film at the Ludlow Town Hall Auditorium on Saturday, August 6 at 7 PM.

Ex Machina is a 2015 British-American science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Alex Garland in his directing debut, and produced by Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich.

Alex Garland, writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine, makes his directorial debut with the stylish and cerebral thriller, EX MACHINA. Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company's brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test-charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan's latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated--and more deceptive--than the two men could have imagined.

The Turing Test is a test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine that is designed to generate human-like responses.

The film is rated R.

Made on a budget of $15 million, the film grossed $36.9 million worldwide and received critical acclaim. The National Board of Review recognized it as one of the ten best independent films of the year, and it won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects over big-budget movies such as The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, while Vikander's acclaimed performance earned her BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Empire Awards, and Saturn Awards nominations.

As with all FOLA movies, the film is free; donations are appreciated. Berkshire Bank will supply popcorn for the film while FOLA will offer water. For additional information, call (802) 228-7239 or visit FOLA's web site at www.fola.us.