Millions of followers. Billions of stars. Just one question:

ARE WE ALONE?

The Vision

Our visual tone is playful, self-aware, and human. Ash drifts through a world of glowing screens and moonlit deserts, opening her eyes to the wonders of the universe when she trades infinite scrolling for endless horizons while indulging in the strange, hopeful dream of UFO culture...

THE Story

  • After a public break up with her celebrity boyfriend, influencer Ashlynn Vallée sets out across the desert Southwest to live the #vanlife and go viral by capturing first-hand evidence of UFOs. But when Ash has an extraordinary experience of her own, how can she prove to a skeptical world that the truth is out there… and prove to herself that it might be within?

  • Alienation is a character-driven sci-fi road dramedy following the journey of Ashlynn Vallée, a cellphone-addicted artist-turned-influencer in the midst of an identity crisis after a very public breakup with her celebrity boyfriend. As her follower count (and income) tumbles, Ash sets out to prove to the world she is interesting enough on her own. Merely returning to her previous identity of “comic art YouTuber” will not get her the follower count she needs to maintain her lifestyle, however, so she makes her journey a little more extra: she sets out to experience #vanlife while searching for UFOs.

    The initial sensationalism of her plan gives her a popularity boost, as well as a new sponsor who sends her a meteorite necklace to promote while they help fund her trip. But because living on the road is tough, UFOs are hard to find, and the Internet can be cruel, Ash finds herself torn between extreme opinions and confronting her social media addiction in the wide-open spaces of the American Southwest.

    Ash confides in her co-pilot— an inflatable alien doll— and questions her own sanity as she experiences strange phenomena and begins to suspect that the meteorite necklace she was gifted might be more than it appears. Does her sponsor have a secret agenda? Who is the follower, and who is the influencer?

The Inspiration

Imagine Nomadland if Fern was a YouTuber and Fox Mulder of the X-Files occasionally slid into the comments… Alienation mixes the quiet reflection of vanlife wandering with the fantastical hopes of UFO chasers, finding humor and humanity in the spaces between Wi-Fi signals.

The Whys

  • We live in a world where we’re constantly connected, yet we somehow feel lonelier and more divided than ever. Alienation explores this paradox with a sci-fi twist. A modern-day Close Encounters of the Third Kind told from the perspective of a terminally-online woman.

  • The world is asking a lot of questions about social media and mental health. We are also seeing a huge uptick of interest in the topic of UFOs, with a new whistleblower or eye-catching headline or video being released almost daily. And with the introduction of AI-generated images and videos, we are all beginning to wonder: what is real?


    And more and more frequently, we are seeing people embrace the minimalism and freedom of the vanlife lifestyle.

  • Who are we to tell this story?


    Writer/director Courtney Hoskins: “I've consumed a steady diet of sci-fi from birth. Like many of my generation, one of my earliest cinematic memories was watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. I was terrified. In an effort to help me understand that no aliens were going to jump out at me in my back yard, my mom showed me a behind-the-scenes documentary about the movie. Someone dreamed all that up? I can make the worlds in my own imagination feel real? Sign me up!

    Thus began a lifelong obsession of exploring the craft of filmmaking and storytelling. And a lifelong wonder... are we alone? I'm a healthy skeptic of the UFO phenomenon, but can't deny some of these reports and sightings are intriguing. Something is happening, but what? I want to believe, but even more than that, I want to dream!

    I've also rounded out my passion for filmmaking and sci-fi with a solid foundation in science and technology. I studied astrophysics in college, and as a former Twitter software engineer, I have a unique understanding of the algorithms that manipulate our behaviors and mental states. Not everything is what it seems and the algorithm is always working...”

The Team

  • Drawn to stories that employ fantasy and sci-fi elements to underscore our deeply human connections, Courtney has made a career out of re-imagining the mundane. From her early experimental films, where she photographs discarded plastic to create alien landscapes, to her narrative work, where supernatural help guides the protagonist to a world of new possibilities, she's quick to start sentences with "what if" to make large the previously unseen.

    Courtney’s films have been featured in festivals around the world, including The New York Film Festival, The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Ann Arbor, and BFI London. She has won awards such as the Slusho!! Commercial Contest of Joy with her short, Slusho! Zoom!!! (with Robots)and placing as a semifinalist in the Slamdance Screenplay Competition with her first feature script Stealing First. More at IMDb

  • David Auner, aac is a cinematographer based in Los Angeles, CA. He was born and raised in Graz, Austria. His grandfather, a retired photographer, started teaching him the "Art of Seeing" and film photography at a very early age. After graduating from high school he moved to Vienna. During that time David started working as a photographer and in film. He began as a sound recordist and camera assistant for TV news and corporate and industrial films. Subsequently, over the next 15 years, he shot many such projects and spent hundreds of hours behind the camera. Meanwhile, he worked as an electrician, grip and 2nd assistant camera on narrative projects. Later on he gaffed and key gripped several music videos and shorts. David started to photograph short films and music videos. He found his true passion in narrative feature episodic television and long form documentary projects. He graduated from Middlesex University, London, with a BA in Digital Film Arts and an MFA in Cinematography from the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles. David is a proud member of the Austrian Association of Cinematographers since 2015.

    David has worked with Courtney on several projects and the two are in perfect harmony when it comes to finding the most compelling way to visually convey a mood or a whole story. They recently shot The Not, a short film, on 35mm.

  • Does this story resonate with you? We are growing our team throughout development of this project and would love to hear from you. Fill out the contact form below with a message and if the stars align, we will reach out!