The Keepers
2025 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Milton Muller
Genres: action, adventure, sci-fi
Space-faring outlaws Porter and Kai must safeguard an ally's enigmatic transmission from a relentless adversary across a desolate interstellar landscape. A father-and-family-made debut blending Okanagan locations with VFX-driven space-opera worldbuilding.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
On paper this sounds like every other space-opera indie, but Muller's decision to build the entire visual grammar around giving Michael Hogan back his instrument—letting VFX *become* the storytelling rather than just window dressing—is genuinely subversive in how it collapses the line between accessibility tech and artistic vision.
A formally aware debut that understands its lineage to Battlestar Galactica while resisting nostalgia; the restraint of the 6-minute form and the precision required to make $8.5K of VFX read as mythic rather than cheap speaks to a director thinking rigorously about what space opera *demands* from the frame.
The choice to use VFX not as spectacle but as the primary vehicle for character presence—letting Hogan's performance live through visual language rather than despite physical limitation—is the kind of constraint-into-strength decision that transforms a family project into something formally singular and emotionally urgent.
Reviews
Milton brings his VFX expertise into a more intimate, emotional context, exploring themes of memory, connection, and legacy.
Choose your fighter and watch the thrill ride 'The Keepers' by Milton Muller.
Festivals
- SModcastle Film Festival 2025
- Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival 2025