Cyclops at the Cinema

Cosmic Disco Detective Rene and the Mystery of Immortal Time Travelers

Cosmic Disco Detective Rene is a sequel to The Secret Society for Slow Romance, but it’s not the type of sequel that retreads the beats. Instead, NYC-based independent filmmaker Sujewa Ekanayake treats us to the same characters in an entirely different genre: a sci-fi comedy romp. Just as I loved The Secret Society for Slow Romance, I instantly fell in love with this quirky, funny slice-of-an-interesting life film.

While it’s a sci-fi comedy, at the heart of Cosmic Disco Detective Rene is a mystery: Are there immortal time travelers? Are they a threat? Do they meant to disrupt the past? What should be done?

You might look at the above and think, “but what does that have to do with disco?” I’m so very glad you asked — Rene (Sujewa Ekanayake), the independent filmmaker that also happens to be North America’s happiest person, is also a detective — and a busy one at that. Rene solves his cases by listening to the background noise of the universe, which just so happens to be disco music. The government has a problem — and they need an innovative detective like Rene to help them determine how to proceed. Independent Filmmaker / Government Agent Ithihasaya (Genoveva Rossi) engages Rene to help advise the government on how to proceed. That’s not all that Rene has on his plate, as we also meet Chitrapati (Natalie Osborne), an independent filmmaker / film critic / theater owner who is interviewing Rene about the history of New York City independent cinema. The film covers his search for the answers to why the time travelers are among us and we get a glimpse of that process — from brainstorming the possibilities with Allyson (Alia Lorae), to checking the groove of the universe.

If you read a lot of my film reviews or hear me talk about film, I often talk about how effective an filmmaker is at building a world and sticking to its rules — and here Ekanayake builds an immensely entertaining world very close to ours — with a mystery all of its own…