Tracers
2025 · 10m · USA
Directed by Sof Puchley
Genres: action, sci-fi, thriller
On a distant planet ruled by contracts and clan codes, a fugitive prince races through a burning capital with every Tracer in the city hunting him — only to realize that the closer he gets to escape, the clearer it becomes he isn't being saved, he's being delivered.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Puchley almost pulls off the reversal — the twist that the rescue is a delivery, the escape is a betrayal — but the kinetic action design oversells the inevitability; it needed to be *boring* to land, not just fast.
A formally assured entry in the sci-fi action lineage, the worldbuilding (contract-law Tracers, feudal-mercenary economy) sits adjacent to better-established premises, and while the editing rhythm is assured, it doesn't interrogate why this particular inversion matters.
The single decision that makes this work is the sound design of the Tracers' approach — layered, relentless, closing in — which does the emotional work the dialogue doesn't, turning a standard chase into something suffocating and inevitably doomed.
Reviews
Sof Puchley's TRACERS fuses high-stakes sci-fi with visceral action and emotional depth.
Festivals
- FilmQuest 2025