“The Collapse” (2027)

In Pre-Production | Recipient of the Oregon Film “Share Your Story” Grant

The Narrative:

A broken car on an endless desert highway becomes a vessel for memory, fear, and the quiet erosion of the American Dream. The Collapse follows a Man and a Young Girl stranded in the high desert as an ICE convoy approaches.

Production Notes

Currently in pre-production and slated for a Summer 2026 shoot, the project is supported by Oregon Film. We are operating under a "Small Crew/High Intimacy" philosophy to protect the emotional truth of the performances.

Director’s Statement:

I was born in Peru and came to the United States as a child. Like many immigrant families, mine arrived carrying a complicated mixture of hope, sacrifice, fear, and expectation.

Growing up, I watched people chase versions of the American Dream that seemed both inspiring and impossible. I saw how entire lives could be shaped by paperwork, borders, economic systems, and ideas about who belongs and who doesn’t. I also saw how resilient people become when those systems fail them.

The Collapse was born from those observations.

The film uses science fiction and surrealism to explore a question that has stayed with me for most of my life: What happens when we stop accepting the stories that powerful institutions tell us about ourselves?

The world of the film is filled with symbols of authority, but beneath them are ordinary people trying to protect one another. The story is ultimately less interested in governments and policies than in the human beings forced to navigate them.

My work often lives at the intersection of memory, history, identity, and myth. Whether I am making documentaries or narrative films about imagined futures, I am interested in how people construct meaning in uncertain worlds.

The Collapse is my attempt to tell a deeply personal story through the language of allegory—a story about inheritance, belonging, and the courage to step off the road that was chosen for you.

Tony Altamirano