Directed by: Chasen Nuttall
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre & tags: Drama, Youth, Relationships, Sex, Love, Independent cinema, Author cinema
Year: 2026
Running time: 12’25”
Country: USA

Logline

A young couple with conflicting desires for intimacy attempt to navigate the emotional complexities of what should be a joyful one-year anniversary.

Synopsis

A young couple attempting to celebrate their one-year anniversary find themselves confronting a quiet but persistent difference in their relationship. Their bond is loving, their days together warm and familiar, yet their desires for physical intimacy don’t align. She wants more physical intimacy than he does, and though he loves her deeply, he cannot explain why his own desire is different. For her, the gap feels like rejection. For him, it is a mystery he is afraid to speak aloud, fearing that naming it might threaten what they have.

Director’s Statement

With Sky to Soil, I wanted to explore the quiet, unspoken tensions that emerge when love and intimacy are not in sync. The film follows a young couple on their one-year anniversary as they navigate mismatched desires for intimacy, turning what should be a celebration into a night of emotional reckoning. It is a story about the complexity of connection, how even in our closest relationships, we can feel profoundly incompatible.

I take an image-first approach to storytelling, allowing mood, composition, and movement to guide the emotional core of a scene before dialogue fills in the gaps. In Sky to Soil, I leaned on body language, atmosphere, and visual subtext to communicate the weight of unspoken words. The film’s strength lies in its representation of those on the asexual spectrum and anyone who has struggled with intimacy or felt unseen in traditional narratives. Rather than providing easy resolutions, Sky to Soil creates space for reflection, allowing audiences to sit with the discomfort and beauty of human vulnerability.

Shooting on Super 16mm with Hawk anamorphic lenses was an essential choice. Celluloid’s organic texture brings intimacy and imperfection that mirrors the raw emotions at the heart of the film. My hope is that Sky to Soil lingers with viewers, not just as a story but as a feeling, one that stays with them long after watching.

-Chasen Nuttall