Soulmate

Set in the near future, a thirteen-year-old girl plays a deadly game of cat and mouse in a world where overpopulation has caused for a desperate law that forces citizens to kill their designated 'Soulmate'.

  • Nik Kacevski
    Director
    Skinford: Chapter Two, Skinford
  • Nik Kacevski
    Writer
    Skinford: Chapter Two, Skinford
  • Christopher Seeto
    Producer
    Skinford: Chapter Two, Skinford
  • Holly May Lewis
    Key Cast
    "Mila"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Science Fiction, Thriller
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 30 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 26, 2020
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Bulgaria
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Arri Alexa Mini
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.40:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nik Kacevski

Nik Kacevski is a writer and director working in film and television.

Originally from Macedonia, he grew up in Sydney Australia where he attended the prestigious University of Sydney completing a Master Degree in Design Science and receiving a Deans’ List of Academic Excellence.

His early career began in Visual Effects and Animation, working through the top animation and VFX companies in Australia, such as Animal Logic, Fuel VFX and Dr.D Studios. This gave Nik the opportunity to work with directors like George Miller on high-end feature films such as Mad Max: Fury Road, Happy Feet 2, Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, Gods of Egypt, Underworld: Blood Wars and The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

His early directing career began with short films and music videos with his first short film DYING ICE, a fantasy sci-fi drama, being selected at the International New York Film Festival and the recently Oscar Accredited Hollyshorts Film Festival. His follow up short film 8:47, a one-take time travel sci-fi, was selected at the Fantasia Film Festival and received an Honourable Mention at Hollyshorts Film Festival in 2013.

In 2017, Nik wrote and directed his feature-length debut SKINFORD. It picked up a myriad of nominations and awards across the international festival circuit for best director, best cinematography, best sound, best music, and best visual effects. It premiered on VICELAND in the US and is currently streaming internationally on the BLACKPILLS platform.

Nik was chosen to participate in The Warner Brothers Emerging Filmmakers program as a writer, having his science fiction script SENSUM produced and released on HBO GO and HBO NOW. He went on to work with Peter Dinklage’s production company Estuary Films, where he was involved with developing an in-house sci-fi drama series.

Nik just finished working on his latest project, SKINFORD: CHAPTER TWO, which was theatrically distributed in theatres across Australia and is also due to be released on the Blackpills platform in 2019. He is attached to direct a Science Fiction drama later in the year, produced by Phoenix Pictures and Deeper Water Films, and is in development on several film and television projects that strive to push creative and technical boundaries.

Nik is represented by Paradigm Talent Agency and Echo Lake Entertainment in the US.

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Director Statement

I designed this world almost a decade ago and it’s existed in many forms. I was fascinated by drastically changing the rules of our culture and society to see how individuals would survive in this world.

The tone of this story was heavily inspired by some of my experiences growing up in a violent environment as a teenager. We moved homes a lot and ended up in an all-boys high school where testosterone was the currency. Each day at every turn you were constantly on high alert to either stay out of certain people’s way, or fight off the ones that you couldn’t avoid. Adding to that, being raised in a household sanctioned by outdated, traditional European ways where you couldn’t express fear or weakness… because you got dealt a beating for it. My youth was quite aggressive to say the least.

That feeling of always watching over your shoulder. Always alert. Always scanning a crowd. THAT feeling is something that still haunts me to today. Although it might come across dramatic as I write about it for the first time, it’s something that I’m aware affects my everyday way of life. I avoid crowd. I avoid public transport where I experienced many dangerous incidences. I avoid eye contact with the wrong people who I have been conditioned to recognize immediately.

SOULMATE is a story that takes that dark feeling of being hunted and explores it on a deep, visceral level. Having developed this world heavily, I began creating a myriad of characters that would live in it and explored how they would survive, both physically and emotionally. I always gravitated to the character of MILA. I felt most for her and in a strange way related to her and her need to be close to her father. Because of that, I have based the entire story around her and her experience learning to live in this world.

This short film has been a long time coming and will set up the larger world that I plan to heavily explore in the longer feature film format. It is a visceral world driven by desperation, fear, control and manipulation. All while tapping into themes of overpopulation and environmental issues.

It’s very topical and like all good sci-fi stories, it’s designed to ask the viewers what they might be willing to do to survive or protect their loved ones in a world where murder is a way of life and celebrated.