Death Valley
2023 · 10m · USA
Directed by Grace Sloan
Genres: comedy, experimental, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
It's New Year's Eve 2080 and a space radiologist descends to the Mojave to take readings and do sunset yoga. The desert, predictably, has other plans.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Tallie Medel doing astronaut yoga in a desert built from tarps is exactly the kind of unserious-serious I'm here for. Bonus points for refusing the VFX budget.
Grace Sloan builds 2080 out of tarps and deadpan video calls and somehow it scans — Calvin Lee Reeder's desert weirdness with a sunset-yoga punchline. Charm-forward but the world has rules.
Hand-crafted analog VFX, desert tarps, deadpan video chats, sunset yoga in the Mojave in 2080 — Grace Sloan building the future from materials that are obviously here is a scrappy charmer of a choice.
Reviews
A scrappy sci-fi oddity built with charmingly hand-crafted sets and analog VFX — a minimalist, free-roaming affair that moves from deadpan comedic to psychedelic and beyond.