The First Disciples

A short film from the CRONE universe

Fantasy | Currently In post-production

Directed and choreographed by Dorothy O'Shea Overbey.

Story by Dorothy O'Shea Overbey. Screenplay by Whitney Rowlett and Dorothy O'Shea Overbey.

Director of Photography Caleb Kuntz

A revolutionary General recruits his first disciples not through force but by fulfilling their deepest needs. As his power grows, he threatens the balance of magic, testing whether the Mother can bring them back.

The First Disciples is the second film in Red Nightfall's CRONE series, following Fractured Dawn (2025). The story is told through voiceover and choreographed movement, with movement vocabularies built in collaboration with each dancer from the traditions they carry.

The film was developed through Red Nightfall's sold-out stage production Unbecoming (March 2026, East Side Performing Arts) and shot in Austin in April 2026. It is now in post-production, where the film's visual effects bring its magic to life: not drawn or generated, but grown. The Casters' power spreads like lichen and blooms like cyanobacteria, iridescent and giving back. The General's is decay that returns nothing.

The First Disciples explores a question that has stayed with director Dorothy O'Shea Overbey since she first read Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men: how do capable people become complicit in oppressive systems? The film is not interested in monsters. It is interested in the moment before surrender, when giving yourself away feels like relief.