Vision and Tone
Cary in Retrograde will be a comedy with a low grade ache running through it. The humor won't come from punchlines but from watching a person collide with a world that is strange, self serious, and entirely indifferent to his talent. That tension is where the film will live.
We plan to shoot on an anamorphic lens package, drawing the color palette and production design from the warmth and texture of 1970s New Hollywood cinema. References like Boogie Nights and Shampoo inform the look more than the camera grammar, grounding Cary's modern story inside a longer tradition of Los Angeles ambition narratives.
The camera will be kinetic and Steadicam driven through Los Angeles, influenced by the long take grammar of Goodfellas and Birdman. As the story moves to Portland, the approach shifts deliberately. Locked off compositions, cooler naturalistic light, a slower edit. The visual language will track Cary's interior journey as precisely as the script does.
Music will be diegetic, collaborative, and structural, co-created with musicians and woven directly into character arcs. Sound design, developed in consultation with Academy Award winning sound designer Randy Thom, will be treated as a primary storytelling tool from the ground up. This is a film with a clear and considered vision. That clarity is by design.
Artist's Statement
Priya and Phillip Domfeh have spent over a decade making films that get seen. This is what they're making next.
The music industry is in crisis, and it's a crisis without borders. Cary in Retrograde is the film about it that audiences everywhere actually want to see.
It's a comedy with real stakes: a musician, a marriage, an industry that keeps changing the rules. It's grounded, funny, and emotionally honest. The kind of film that travels well, earns goodwill at festivals, and finds an audience hungry for something that feels real.
The project has already proven itself. The short won jury awards at Austin, Nashville, and Buffalo. The feature screenplay advanced in two major competitions. Academy Award winning sound designer Randy Thom is attached as a mentor and consultant. Lead actors are set. The screenplay is complete and WGA registered.
We are Priya and Phillip Domfeh, the founders of Cosmic Otter Productions and the writing and directing team behind this project. Our credits include Disney Launchpad (four NAACP Image Award nominations) and work alongside Emmy winner Lena Waithe. We know how to make films that get seen.
Cary in Retrograde is production ready and it's the first film in a planned trilogy. The story doesn't stay in America. A later chapter is set in Europe, and we're building those relationships now. We're looking for partners who want to be part of this from the beginning.
Plans for Future Franchisement via Trilogy
Cary in Retrograde is not a single story. It is the beginning of one.
We are developing a trilogy that follows Cary across three chapters of his life, each film distinct in setting, sound, and emotional register. The world expands beyond Los Angeles and beyond America. A later chapter takes the story to Europe, where we are already planting roots and building the creative relationships that will make that vision possible.
What we are building is a body of work with a coherent identity and a growing audience. Investors who come in now are not backing a single film. They are entering at the foundation of something larger.