Tropfest has always been a proving ground for emerging Australian voices, and this year’s Wildcard selection has delivered one of the most personal and unexpectedly funny entries of the lot: One More for Safety, a dark comedy inspired by writer-director Kacey Baker’s real-life medical emergency.
The short film, which recently secured a spot in the Tropfest 2026 YouTube Wildcard Top 10, follows a filmmaker hospitalised with a mysterious condition known as “Filmmakeritis”, surrounded by a ward of broken creatives, chaotic personalities and desperate dreamers, all clinging to the hope of one final shot at success.
Producer Victoria Carwin, founder of Scenario Productions and Scenario Artists, says the project came together almost instantly once Baker reached out.
“Kacey called me with the idea and said, ‘I don’t do festivals, but you do. This is Tropfest territory”, Carwin explains. “He told me it was based on something real that happened to him, and I said straight away: I don’t even need to read the script. I’m producing it.”
That instinct quickly turned into a race against the Tropfest deadline, with the team pulling together a lean, fast-moving shoot across the Central Coast and Sydney. The production was executed with a minimal crew and a tight turnaround, relying on strong collaboration and long-standing creative relationships.
