Co-Editor-in-Chief, Film

If you're a fan of The Lord of the Rings, you might recognize Katherine Jackson from her cameo appearances as young as 4 in The Fellowship of the Ring. The daughter of Oscar winners Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, Jackson grew up in the family business and held various jobs in the film business. She waited until she was 28 to get behind the camera, and her directorial debut premieres Sunday night at the HollyShorts Film Festival.

The 24-minute short drama film titled Attachment Theory, which she wrote and directed, follows a woman with agoraphobia who becomes dependent on an AI machine to administer her anti-anxiety medication during a global pandemic. Motivated by the desire to earn a 5-star rating, the machine exhibits aberrant behavior that becomes downright creepy.

“The film came to me during the pandemic, when we were all in isolation and we were becoming more reliant on technology,” Jackson told Deadline. “I saw a lot of people suffering with their mental health, anxiety, depression, agoraphobia. This was the worst-case scenario of developing a dependency on that technology.”