Claire Bedford, an engineer in her 30s and several months pregnant, has stolen her ex-husband Gregory's starship and is running for her life — not just for herself, but for her unborn child. Gregory is a powerful, dangerous man — a weapons smuggler whose reach extends across the galaxy, embodied even in the ship's AI, which speaks in his voice.
When Claire triggers the ship's self-defense system, it begins wiping her memory every seven minutes. She wakes disoriented, strapped to the pilot's chair, with no idea where she is or what she's done. Her only lifeline: audio recordings left by her past selves, each one guiding her through another step of the escape — hacking the console, bypassing the ship's defenses, exploiting the engineering she knows better than anyone.
With each loop, the stakes tighten. Gregory's ship is closing in. The AI manipulates, bargains, threatens. And not every voice guiding her may be what it seems. Claire must decide who to trust — including herself — and how far she's willing to go to protect her unborn child.
The visual language draws from the best of futuristic sci-fi — glass, light, and isolation as design principles. We're creating a film that is suffocatingly intense — despite the glass walls, this starship is very much a cage. We're in one character's POV through a gripping 10 minute thrill ride, as the clock counts down and the pressure mounts.
Inside the starship, we'll create a gripping world that shifts between large dolly and jib moves and intimate handheld moments. We'll build the ship on a rotating platform, so that we have 360 degree access to the virtual environment. We want to be as precise as Claire is as she navigates the puzzle she's in - but as she slowly loses control, so do we. We'll build the ship to be modular, allowing us to decide when and where to shoot through glass and when to be up close and personal with Claire. At its core, this is a film about coercive control, and a woman who must learn to trust herself when everything around her is designed to make her doubt.
An octagonal glass vessel — part luxury yacht, part interstellar vehicle. Gregory's ship is the most expensive in the galaxy, and it looks like it: geometric glass panels framed in dark metal, filled with sleek consoles and ambient lighting. It's a single room, intimate and claustrophobic despite the infinite view outside.
We'll build this starship practically, out of acrylic sheets. Yes, it's a complex, difficult build — but it's where 100% of our film takes place. We're narrowing our focus to make something that truly stands out from other student films.
A world defined by two states: the cold, clinical calm of Gregory's control, and the urgent warmth of Claire's fight to break free.
Practical Build + LED Volume. The starship interior will be built as a practical set and shot on an LED volume wall. The glass panels become real windows to real-time space environments — no green screen, no compositing. The actors see what the audience sees, and the lighting wraps naturally. Unreal Engine environments will be built during pre-production.
Single Cast. The film is essentially a one-woman show — Claire is on screen for every frame, with the AI version of Gregory and Past Claire performed as voice roles. The right lead actress carries the entire film.
Sound Design. The film lives in its audio: the droning alarm, the AI's measured voice, the recordings crackling from the wristpad, the mechanical pop of harness buckles. I'd love to make the ship itself sound reactive, and have the voice actors perform live on set.
Scope. ~10 pages. ~10 minutes. One location, one actress, one story told with maximum precision.
An AFI thesis film. Currently assembling the core creative team. Reach out if you want to join!
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Get in TouchSagi is a director whose work is rooted in precise visual storytelling and an instinct for tension. He is currently a directing fellow at the American Film Institute. Future Proof is his thesis film — a contained, ambitious sci-fi that combines the intimacy of a one-room thriller with the scale of a space opera.
His prior work spans narrative shorts and commercial productions for clients including PlayStation, Google, The Ritz Carlton, and Hennessy — building a fluency with VFX, art direction, and performance that he now brings fully to narrative film.
