Stryka is an awesome reptile woman from another planet who does heists and odd jobs with her (literal) partner in crime, Callen. But she has a secret–she’s been stealing with somebody else. (She just wants a partner who cleans up well enough to pull off a fancy jewel heist once and a while–is that so wrong?) Anxious about her career in thievery and torn by her loyalty to competing thieves, Stryka has to figure out where she belongs. Luckily, she has a highly advanced robot therapist to talk it over with.

 

 

 

Director’s Statement by Emily Carmichael:

“I love genre, and the many beloved tropes that come with different genres [PAN UP AS: the MYSTERIOUS RACER removes her helmet, revealing herself to be a beautiful long-haired woman] but genre can also be very constraining. It tends to lay a course for us based on our gender, our skin color, whether or not we wear glasses or even have any beautiful long hair to shake. A stoic alien warrior character like Stryka is expected to be left of spotlight, unwavering in her loyalty, but this film invites us to hear her desires and anxieties, and to for once imagine what her journey might be.

 

I think a playful questioning of accepted story archetypes can have broad-reaching effect on how we encounter stories, ourselves and each other, and that this kind of surreptitiously social filmmaking has a place alongside more overtly issue-driven projects around serious subjects. There’s an ideological war afoot between those who believe the voices of all people everywhere should be heard, and those who think that’s somehow ‘asking too much,’ or ‘going too far.’ And this is how we will win–by committing ourselves to exposing the untold story, wherever we find it, in our reality or an alternate one.”

 

~Director Emily Carmichael