OASIS
A Short Film by Lucie Pottecher
Entrusted with overseeing the peaceful passing of five residents at the unconventional Oasis medical facility, caregiver Alex must navigate her convictions when she forms an unexpected connection with Jasmine, a defiant patient who wishes to go back on her decision.
SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS
THEMES
Autonomy and the Right to Choose
The Illusion of Care and Control
Regret and the Urgency to Live
In the sterile, surreal halls of the Oasis Facility, death has been transformed into ceremony. Here, terminal patients are promised a painless, almost celebratory passing. Alex, a devoted caregiver, guides them through their final days, ensuring each farewell feels dignified and complete.
Among the residents is Jasmine, a young woman whose quiet defiance sets her apart. As the ceremony approaches, Jasmine’s resolve begins to crack. The weight of a life unlived pushes her to a desperate decision: she no longer wants to die.
Jasmine’s plea forces Alex to confront the very convictions that brought her here—and the memory of her own mother’s slow decline, when she was too afraid to act. As the surreal ritual unfolds, Alex must decide whether to honor the system she has dedicated herself to, or break it to grant Jasmine the choice she was once denied.
Visually, Oasis blurs the line between reality and hallucination. The film’s striking compositions and shifting perspectives mirror the power struggle between caregiver and patient. Through bold stylistic choices—like breaking the fourth wall to implicate the viewer—Oasis becomes an unsettling meditation on autonomy, compassion, and the moral costs of control.
At its heart, Oasis asks: When someone reclaims their will to live, who has the right to stand in their way?
WHY
When I was 13, I lost my grandmother to a painful battle with ALS.
When I was 13, I lost my grandmother to ALS. I watched her slowly lose her agency and sense of self. Yet she kept fighting.
One day, I asked her, “Doesn’t it hurt?” Unable to speak, she typed three words on her iPad: What other choice?
That question haunted me.
What if she had asked me to end her pain? And what if I couldn’t bring myself to do it?
From that moment, the seed of Oasis was planted.
Oasis dives headfirst into the ethical and emotional complexities of choice within end-of-life care. It asks what happens when the principles we’ve always believed to be right are challenged, and when our compassion collides with our fear.
The story unfolds in a near-future care facility designed to ease patients’ final days, blending speculative fiction with grounded emotion. Inspired by works like Black Mirror and Homecoming, the film uses a heightened aesthetic to provoke reflection on autonomy, morality, and the blurred boundaries between care and control.
But Oasis isn’t just about end-of-life care. At its core, it’s about the universal struggle for agency over our own stories, whether that means choosing how we live, how we love, or how we leave this world. In a world where bodily autonomy and freedom of choice are increasingly under threat, Oasis urges us to consider how we protect those rights, and what it means to truly honor another person’s will.
In bringing Oasis to life, our team is proud to collaborate with organizations like the American Medical Women’s Association, whose mission to advance equity in healthcare echoes the film’s commitment to compassion and dignity.
AWARD-WINNING TEAM
