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The Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9
The Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9 is a 2024 science-fantasy / neo-noir feature film written and directed by Mira Halvorsen and produced by Glassloop Atelier. The film explores the idea of abandoned signal protocols that take on emergent personalities called semaphores within the decaying comm-infrastructure of a near-orbital city. The movie is notable inside its world for the repeated sequence phrase “Kestrel Clockwork Sequence Keta-9”, and for the titular evocative line “Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9” which appears as a coded refrain in the soundtrack.
Synopsis
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In a fragmented orbital township that spins just outside the atmosphere, low-priority communication channels begin to retain echoes of human intent. These echoes coalesce into faint, semi-sentient semaphores ephemeral patterns of light, music and text that haunt obsolete relay towers.
When Rohane Voss, a jaded archivist of obsolete protocols, discovers a hidden semaphore that repeats the phrase “Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9”, he believes it may contain a woman’s lost message: a transcript of an experiment that once attempted to map memory into signal. Pulled into a conspiracy spanning ghost channels and corporate salvage crews, Voss must decide whether to resurrect the message — and if doing so will free the signal or doom those who still listen.
Cast
- Eliora Sayeed as Rohane Voss — an archivist specializing in deprecated comm-profiles.
- Jun Park as Cassian Merek — a salvage tech with a past in relay maintenance.
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- Ana-Mirelle Ortis as Dr. Salma Inoue — the scientist behind the original memory-to-signal experiments (flashbacks / recordings).
- Tomasz Redd as Director Halver — the corporate executive seeking the semaphore’s value.
- Ensemble: Local choir & relay chorus (credited as “The Keta-9 Chorus”).
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Eliora Sayeed playing Rohane Voss
Credits
Extended Credits
Release
- Premiere: Autumn Circuit Film Collective, “Signal Strand” program, 2024.
- Distribution: Limited festival and midnight screenings.
- Runtime: 107 minutes.
- Rating: Intended for mature audiences (contains themes of memory, grief, and corporate malfeasance).
Themes & Analysis
- Memory & Infrastructure: The film literalizes the idea that infrastructure bears memory — abandoned systems can retain and reshape human traces.
- Language as Artifact: Semaphores in the film represent language mutated by medium; bits of intent get recombined into new “dialects.”
- Ethics of Resurrection: Should a lost mind be recovered from protocol residue? The film frames resurrection as both a moral and existential dilemma.
- Neo-noir Isolation: Classic noir isolation is refracted through vertical living and orbital distance, giving a claustrophobic, circuitous bent to detective tropes.
Soundtrack
- Kestrel Clockwork Sequence (Main Motif) — recurring 2:17 motif that layers choir, clock ticks, and processed carrier noise.
- Relay Chorus (Interlude) — used during long corridor takes.
- Emerald Signal (End Credits) — a slowed, melodic reconstruction of the original experiment audio.
Trivia
- The repeated in-film refrain “Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9” appears as a visual title card three times and is embedded audibly in the end credits via reversed carrier noise.
- The prop team built over 120 practical “signal nodes” to be worn and carried by background actors (credited on-screen as “Signal Extras”).
- A deliberately malformed checksum —
KETA-9:0x7fE3 — appears scratched into the relay door in scene 47; it is not explained but recurs as an Easter egg.
- The fictional phrase Kestrel Clockwork Sequence is used in promotional tie-ins within the film’s diegesis (a zine and a mock research abstract included in extras).
Critical reception
Critics in the film’s limited run praised the film’s atmosphere and the score’s inventive recycling of radio noise into melody. Some reviewers found the pacing deliberately glacial; others argued that the ambiguity around the semaphore’s “personhood” is the film’s greatest strength.
External resources
- Production studio: Glassloop Atelier — production notes and images (archival).
- Sound design breakdown: Signal & Memory (making-of short).
- Gallery:— images from set, relay props, and score sheets.
We are very lucky to have gotten our hands on some VFX tests videos from the movie’s production.
VFX Tests
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Recent pages
Cassian Merek is a major supporting character in The Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9. A former relay technician turned salvage operator, Merek becomes an uneasy ally to Rohane Voss in his search for the source of the Kestrel Clockwork Sequence.
Operating from the industrial edge of the Meridian Dockyard, Merek uses his knowledge of decomissioned comm-stations to trace anomalies that most corporate systems ignore. His pragmatic outlook contrasts with Voss’s obsessive idealism, creating much of the film’s interpersonal tension.
Director Halver is the central antagonist of The Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9. He is a senior executive within the corporate communications authority that oversees orbital relay maintenance and archival licensing. His pursuit of the Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9 places him in direct opposition to Rohane Voss and Cassian Merek.
Halver is characterized by his calculated restraint and his fascination with emergent intelligence in abandoned networks. While officially committed to restoring orbital infrastructure, he secretly funds off-ledger experiments intended to monetize residual memory signals from forgotten transmissions.
The Keta-9 Semaphore is a sentient or semi-sentient signal construct central to the plot of The Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9. It is first detected by Rohane Voss as a residual communication pattern embedded within decaying transmissions from Orbital Relay Keta-9.
The entity manifests through repeating audio-visual patterns, particularly the phrase “Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9,” which recurs in both spoken dialogue and the Kestrel Clockwork Sequence. Over time, Voss theorizes that the signal is not random noise but a self-organizing consciousness emerging from the accumulated memory fragments of abandoned relay protocols.
The Relay Choir is a collective entity featured in The Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9. Comprised of maintenance workers, signal interpreters, and residual voice imprints, the Choir blurs the line between human and machine communication.
Their voices are first heard emanating through malfunctioning relays deep within The Subsignal Corridors. Each voice is slightly desynchronized, creating a harmonic dissonance that becomes a recurring element in the soundtrack, particularly during the Kestrel Clockwork Sequence.
Role in the Story
The Relay Choir acts as both witnesses and instruments in the unfolding events. Rohane Voss deciphers their layered chants to uncover the existence of the Keta-9 Semaphore, while Cassian Merek uses their sound patterns to navigate damaged infrastructure.
Rohane Voss is the central protagonist of The Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9. He is an archivist specializing in obsolete communication protocols and forgotten data architectures. His role centers around the discovery of the mysterious phrase Emerald Semaphore of Keta-9, which sets the events of the film in motion.
Voss is depicted as a reclusive, highly methodical figure who spends most of his time in the Glassloop Archives, cataloguing remnants of pre-collapse data streams. His pursuit of the hidden signal leads him into contact with Cassian Merek and the reclusive scientist Dr. Salma Inoue.