Havana Syndrome
Unexplained attacks become the first visible trace of a larger system.
An Oregon-made conspiracy thriller about Havana Syndrome, artificial intelligence, surveillance, and the fight to preserve personal agency.
Veteran journalist Shelly Shapiro investigates reports surrounding Havana Syndrome and discovers evidence pointing toward a covert weapons program.
The trail moves through directed-energy technology, surveillance, artificial intelligence, and the weaponization of the human mind. What begins as an investigation into a hidden weapon becomes a fight over perception, behavior, and reality itself.
The film asks a simple question: what happens when the technology we create to control the world begins to control us?
The fight is to preserve the ability to think freely, choose for ourselves, and act with genuine agency.
Unexplained attacks become the first visible trace of a larger system.
A covert weapons program may no longer be operating under human control.
A free press becomes the last defense against a system built to control the truth.
Freedom becomes the right to know which thoughts are still your own.
You shoot with the resources you have, get scenes in the can, build trust with the cast, and turn that progress into momentum. Initial financial support helped kickstart the project. Now we’re raising the next stage of funding to get the film shot, assembled, and ready for a direct distribution strategy.
Complete principal photography by March 2027.
Edit, sound, score, color, VFX, clearances, and formal structure.
Captions, masters, Bitmax delivery, marketing, and platform submissions.
A five-city event strategy built around virtual and four-wall exhibition.
Follow the reporting, testimony, and scientific debate that form the real-world perimeter of RACE END.

I’ve spent more than twenty years making films with small crews, thin resources, and people willing to take a chance together. I write for the actors in front of me, work in real places, and shoot with the edit in mind. That way of filmmaking has taught me to trust what we can find in the field: a performance, a street corner, a moment none of us could have planned. RACE END is my chance to build a feature and open up a story world at the speed we actually work. I want the film to feel discovered as it unfolds.
The story begins with a journalist who has spent decades investigating Havana Syndrome and finds himself confronting questions much bigger than the one he started with. How do we establish the truth when images, voices, and evidence can be manipulated? Who gets to shape what a community believes? Those questions reach into our work, our relationships, and our sense of agency. I don’t have neat answers, and I’m not making a film that pretends to. I’m a dramatist. I want to put people under pressure, follow the choices they make, and see what the story reveals. I hope you’ll come along for that exploration.
RACE END is a microbudget feature filming in Portland and across the surrounding Northwest. We’re seeking nonunion actors for day-player and supporting roles, with an estimated 100 speaking parts. Characters are written with the actors we cast in mind. To express interest, email Sasha Santiago at SuperDreamIndie@gmail.com with a headshot, a short paragraph about yourself as an actor, and links to previous work if available.
The larger opportunity is not simply one movie. It is a repeatable independent production system built around a connected body of work.