BackSpace Forever
2024 · 15m · USA
Directed by Lexie Findarle Trivundza, Nick Trivundza
Genres: action, adventure, sci-fi
Tones: mythic, tense, theatrical
In the final chapter of the BackSpace Trilogy, Hunter, Mono and Rival break their contracts with the BackSpace Corporation and are sent on a suicide mission into the outer reaches of space — their only path to survival. The CG-animated short closes out an indie sci-fi adventure built around the friendship between black-hole-hunting renegades.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
BackSpace Forever plays it pretty straight for what could've been a weirder premise—three renegades on a suicide mission should feel more transgressive, but instead it's content to be a competent space adventure that knows exactly what it is and doesn't push back against that.
The trilogy structure and mythic tone suggest formal ambition, but BackSpace Forever lives in YouTube's register rather than the festival tradition; it's scrappy indie digital cinema that doesn't quite have the compositional rigor or editorial precision that would elevate it into the lineage it's reaching toward.
The real achievement here isn't the Unreal Engine pipeline or the three-film arc—it's that Trivundza and Trivundza bottled something ineffable about character dynamics that makes audiences care more about Hunter, Mono, and Rival than the spectacle around them, which is a genuine decision problem that they solved.
Reviews
A cool sci-fi short film trilogy here for you to watch today that I think you're going to enjoy.
The BackSpace Trilogy concludes with a thrilling crescendo as Hunter, Mono and Rival team up to survive the outer reaches of BackSpace.
Festivals
- May the 4th Film Festival 2024, Special Achievement Award