Feature Film – 118–125 minutes – Civil Collapse Road Trip / Absurdist Political Thriller

Logline:
In a near-future America fractured after a sudden digital collapse, two mismatched young adults road-trip through a lawless East Coast corridor in search of safety and family, encountering scavengers, ideologues, and child militias as the remnants of everyday systems curdle into something far more dangerous.

Synopsis:
After the collapse of national infrastructure following the fall of social media and centralized power, Yorick and Lara travel through the ruins of the American East Coast in a cherry-red car that makes them impossible to ignore. What begins as a search for answers in Washington, D.C. turns into a desperate attempt to survive a country splintered into ideological fiefdoms, scavenger economies, and weaponized belief systems.

Their journey unfolds as a series of tense, often absurd encounters: abandoned federal buildings turned into ghost towns, semi-legal smoke shops operating in the absence of law, self-sufficient drifters offering grim survival advice, and child regiments indoctrinated by franchised extremist movements. As the roads grow more dangerous, so does the emotional distance between Yorick and Lara—one seeking meaning, the other clinging to momentum as a form of survival.

Tone & Style:

Tone:
Bleakly comedic and quietly horrifying. Deadpan humor collides with sudden violence and ideological absurdity. The film treats societal collapse as banal, transactional, and deeply American—played straight, not sensationalized.

Style:
A stripped-down road movie with episodic encounters, handheld realism, and long conversational stretches punctuated by abrupt, destabilizing threats. The visual language emphasizes emptiness, broken systems that still half-function, and the eerie persistence of routine inside chaos.

Themes:

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