SPARKS
Section: Narrative Spotlight
Director-screenwriter: Fergus Campbell
Logline: Cleo is new to Sparks, Nevada when she discovers a cigarette vending machine that inexplicably produces a book on Jean-Luc Godard. When she meets the Crop soon after, Cleo’s morphed into a cinephile, and when she learns of the Crop’s reservoir visits, she’s certain that she could time travel and meet Godard in 60s Paris.
Crop leader Antoine is enamored with Cleo but rankled by her insinuations that Crop life is boring. When Cleo disappears at the reservoir, Antoine calls into question his own sense of purpose, before unexpected adventures materialize—a shootout, a dreamy gay barbecue—until Cleo returns to Sparks and the Crop must figure out where she’s been and if she’s lost her mind.
Panelists: Fergus Campbell, Elsie Fisher, Charlie B. Foster, Madison Hu, Denny McAuliffe, Simon Downes Toney, Lola Lafia
Sales Agent: Obscured Pictures
Premiered: March 12, 2026
Key Quote: Campbell said of the film’s setting, “I discovered Sparks, Nevada, through working with Lola, producer of the film, on research in the Black Hawk Desert, which is north of Sparks and Reno. And we fell in love with the reservoir, which is where half of the movie is set, which is in a small town called Gerlach, Nevada. So, we had to get to that area by driving through Reno and Sparks, and we had already decided that we were going to make a coming-of-age film, and I wanted to find somewhere that was kind of listless, atmospherically kind of vast, felt like somewhere you needed to escape, but also had kind of decaying, romantic qualities that would look good on camera. So, we just decided after one trip there … to make a movie that was set there.”
Deadline Studio at SXSW presented by Redbreast Irish Whiskey.
