(SeaPRwire) – Science fiction has long been a versatile genre, encompassing everything from pulp adventures and space operas to time-travel romantic comedies. It’s an ever-changing, shape-shifting category that can require massive budgets to realize its distant worlds—yet it also serves as an ideal setting for low-budget, lo-fi character-driven stories.
At this year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival, the latter type of sci-fi took center stage: stories where the genre acts as a backdrop for intimate human dramas, though with mixed results. Is this a sign of a rising trend in sci-fi filmmaking? Or is it merely a coincidence that multiple directors turned to time travel or digital consciousness transfer to frame character-focused narratives? The answer might be both. Below is a look at some of the standout and underwhelming sci-fi films that use the genre as a tool for their character-driven plots.
Anima
Anima, Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s sci-fi drama set in a retro-futuristic world where tech has advanced to let pets live forever and human consciousness be uploaded to the cloud post-death, carries a detached, almost weightless vibe. This could stem from protagonist Beck (Sydney Chandler of Alien: Earth), a reclusive engineer who takes a job as a handler for Paul (Takehiro Hira from Shogun
With its Japanese-inspired settings (though the film is vague about its location, sometimes showing U.S. motels) and focus on music’s ability to connect people, Anima seems partially influenced by Haruki Murakami’s work—but its attempt to capture the 1Q84 author’s ambiguous surrealism mostly misses the mark. As Paul takes Beck to visit people he’s wronged or abandoned, Ivie adds random absurd visuals and futuristic touches, but Anima ends up being a frustratingly generic road trip film. The world it’s set in and Paul’s regrets are barely developed beyond what he explicitly tells Beck. It’s a meandering sci-fi drama with stakes as underdeveloped as its characters.
Anima made its debut at SXSW on March 12. It currently has no distributor or set release date for general audiences.
The Saviors
The Saviors was perhaps the most disappointing squandering of time and talent I encountered at SXSW. Starring Adam Scott and Danielle Deadwyler as a suburban couple on the brink of divorce, the film is a sci-fi mystery disguised as a paranoid psychological thriller. That would be acceptable—if the thriller element didn’t rely on outdated Middle Eastern stereotypes and shallow political observations.
Directed by Kevin Hamedani, The Saviors follows Sean and Kim Harrison (Scott and Deadwyler), a couple in a quiet suburb whose lives are disrupted when their Airbnb guests arrive. The guests are Amir and Jahan Razi (Theo Rossi and Nazanin Boniadi), a Middle Eastern brother and his deaf sister who initially seem friendly—but their unusual actions soon arouse Sean and Kim’s distrust: they’re jumpy, they appear to be observing others constantly, and most alarmingly, they’re concealing strange equipment that looks like it could be part of a bomb. When the president is set to visit their town, Sean and Kim start to fear they’re caught up in a major conspiracy—an intuition that turns out to be more accurate than they imagined.
The Saviors frustratingly keeps its sci-fi elements hidden, only dropping occasional clues like a green flash from the guests’ guesthouse or surreal apocalyptic dreams that haunt Sean. For the most part, though, it leans into Sean and Kim’s paranoid fears that they’re housing terrorists. This is a disappointingly outdated and rigid approach to a story that starts with potential, only to fizzle out—pun intended—far too late.
The Saviors premiered at SXSW on March 13. It does not yet have a distributor or confirmed general release date.
Sparks
Cleo (Elsie Fisher) has just moved to Sparks, a small town in Nebraska, but she knows right away she wants to leave as soon as she can. When a cigarette vending machine accidentally gives her a book about French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, Cleo becomes a passionate film lover. By the time she meets the Crop—a group of wandering teens who frequent a nearby reservoir they think can send them through time—she’s set on traveling back to 1960s Paris to become an actress. Antoine (Charlie B. Foster), the Crop’s leader, immediately develops feelings for Cleo and urges the group to help her fulfill her dream. But when Cleo vanishes alone in the reservoir, the Crop is unsure what to do—until she comes back and turns their understanding of the world upside down.
Sparks is by far the strongest entry in this collection of lo-fi sci-fi films. A delightful and whimsical queer coming-of-age story, it’s infused with a dreamlike quality that suits its cast of daydreamers. The ensemble—featuring emerging talents Denny McAuliffe, Madison Hu, Simon Downes Toney, Thomas Deen Baker, and Julia D’Angelo—forms the raw, unpolished core of Fergus Campbell’s written and directed film. The teens navigate love and heartbreak, host quirky barbecues that border on surreal, take part in dance battles with queer cowboys, and speak in a deadpan, Wes Anderson-esque style that hides their turbulent inner feelings. This is exactly the type of indie sci-fi tale that thrives on a lo-fi approach, and it’s bound to become a hidden treasure for aspiring film enthusiasts.
Sparks premiered at SXSW on March 12. It currently lacks a distributor or set general release date.
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