After Joaquin Oliver, a Venezuelan-born teenage activist and writer, is murdered outside his creative writing class in a school shooting, he posthumously narrates the story of his resurrection with the assistance of generative AI and […]
After Joaquin Oliver, a Venezuelan-born teenage activist and writer, is murdered outside his creative writing class in a school shooting, he posthumously narrates the story of his resurrection with the assistance of generative AI and his loved ones who refuse to let him go.
In 2025, Jim Acosta, the longtime CNN correspondent, interviewed Joaquin Oliver, an anti-violence advocate, in his avatar on what would’ve been Joaquin’s 25th birthday. It created waves of controversy because Joaquin Oliver is dead. Joaquin was shot to death on Valentine’s Day seven years earlier during a lesson on how to write the perfect love letter. Inspired by Joaquin’s parents’ use of generative AI, art, and theater to continue Joaquin’s advocacy in his afterlife, Veins of Gold documents the resurrection of Joaquin’s voice, and the family’s epic search for accountability and change. Told in a mosaic of Joaquin’s real and imagined voice layered over vérité, interview, and archival footage, the film tells an immersive and nuanced story about modern grief, the manipulation of truth, and an immigrant family’s relentless pursuit of justice in their adopted nation.