EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK: Stills from Reiff Gaskell and Rebecca Baker’s psychological sci-fi ‘Drowning’

13 August 2026 | By Natalia Albin

Directed by Reiff Gaskell, and written by and starring Rebecca Baker, Drowning is a psychological sci-fi drama set in a near-future London. The visceral genre short follows Elle, a frontline nurse, as she navigates addiction, trauma and institutional collapse inside the psychiatric care system.

"Drowning grew out of a period of my life where I was struggling to engage with the outside world," Baker tells Short Stuff. "Writing became one of the only ways I could make sense of what I was living through and stay connected to something beyond myself. As the process went on, I became much more interested in writing about what happens afterwards; the way memory shifts, how perception changes, and how difficult experiences can quietly reshape the way someone moves through the world."

Producer Alice Duke says the film tackles subjects "that are often misunderstood or discussed in isolation - trauma, addiction, mental illness and the lasting impact of institutional failure," adding that the production was defined by "the care and authenticity that underpinned every stage of the process."

For Gaskell, the project arrived at a personal crossroads. "I had spent years filming mental distress from the outside as a documentarian, and not long before Alice gave me Rebecca's script, I lost someone to mental illness," he says. "So I was desperate to find a way inside and grapple with that experience, to understand it."

The film also explores the failures of the legal and healthcare systems, and the consequences those failures can have for survivors. “[Survivors are] let down twice, first by what happened to them and then by the system meant to support them," Gaskell says.

Short Stuff has an exclusive first look at stills from the film below:

Alongside Baker, the cast includes Kola Bokinni, Giles Surridge, Amelia Bullmore and Sophia Myles."I've always seen acting as something subjective and transformative. To me, it should carry a message," Bokini says. "Drowning felt like exactly that."

“When I was approached to be involved in Drowning, it was pretty much a yes from the jump,” executive producer Nicholas Pinnock says. He has since brought Duke onto a short he is directing and a feature he is producing and starring in, praised her work on the production.

Drowning was made with full post-production sponsorship from Lipsync, alongside support from PTSD UK.