Help us bring Sunroof - A Graduate Thesis Film to Life

Hello! I’m Esteban Larach, a graduate student at SCAD currently working on my thesis film, SUNROOF. This project marks the culmination of my journey at SCAD; a collaborative effort where our team is pushing creative boundaries, tackling new challenges, and bringing bold ideas to life.

I developed SUNROOF around a haunting moral question: If a deer breaks its leg, do you put it out of its misery: or try to save it, even if it may never walk again? That dilemma drives my storytelling.

I’m drawn to characters who crack under pressure; not out of malice, but fear. My work explores how small, misguided decisions can snowball into paranoia, secrecy, and irreversible consequences. I’m especially interested in the blurry lines of morality between people who are supposed to protect and love one another. How far will someone go to save themselves when everything is at stake?

This film lives in that tension.

Set in the volatile social environment of college; where identities are still forming and friendships can shift in an instant, SUNROOF explores how youth, alcohol, and desperation can turn dangerous. I aim to heighten reality to cinematic extremes while grounding the story in emotions and decisions we’ve all, in some way, experienced.

Ultimately, this is a story about the trap of survival, and the cost of trying to escape it.

Our goal is to raise $5,300 to cover the remaining costs of the project. This includes lighting, food for the team, lodging, and transportation. We’ve already secured our location, but due to its unique nature, we had to go over budget and require specialized equipment to bring this story to life in the best way possible.

To complete this film at the level it deserves, we need your support, whether that’s through a donation of any amount or simply by sharing our campaign.

What is Sunroof About?

Late at night, four college students speed toward an afterparty. The air is filled with recklessness; booze, cocaine, careless laughter. But in an instant, everything changes. A girl climbs through the sunroof... and doesn’t make it back inside.

What follows is a descent into fear, selfishness, and survival.

Sunroof explores how one moment of thoughtlessness can splinter friendships and bring out the darkest sides of people when faced with the consequences of their actions.

This story is about complicity, guilt, and the terrifying line between accident and choice. It’s about how good people do terrible things, and how fear can make monsters out of all of us.

The Look and Feel

Sunroof will be shot with an intimate, gritty realism that mirrors the emotional collapse of the characters. We’ll combine handheld camera work and precise visual compositions to create a visceral, cinematic experience.

The setting: late-night highways, desolate roads, a lake shrouded in fog.

Visually inspired by films like Nightcrawler, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Prisoners, the goal is to immerse you into the chaos, the stillness, and the unbearable tension of every moment.

We'll shoot on the Red Raptor 8K camera with anamorphic lenses, giving us a wide, cinematic aspect ratio to contrast the claustrophobic emotions and tight physical spaces.

Meet the Team

Writer/Director – Esteban Larach

An Honduran multi-hyphenate filmmaker with a passion for directing. His hands-on experience across departments shaped his drive to be the glue that holds a set together; balancing efficiency with creative collaboration. Drawn to horror, comedy, and stories about moral gray areas, Esteban wrote and will direct Sunroof, a dark comedy about doing the wrong thing to save yourself.

Producer – Daniel Martinez

He focuses on producing and directing, where he can apply his organizational and financial skills in practice. He excels at working with people, building teams and coordinating challenging projects. He is passionate about bringing this to life since it’s a short that combines multiple disciplines in filmmaking and resonates with the story.

Director of Photography – Steven Zhou

Based in LA, and born in Shanghai, the change in atmosphere during his upbringing brings a unique aspect in his vision. He has collaborated with many talents, from Emmy-award winners to ASC-highlighted cinematographers, and with world renowned companies like David Yurman.

Thank you for your belief and support for this project!

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