CYBIL STARGAZER journeys to a far-flung human potential center to join the REMOTE VIEWING PROGRAM, a scientific study in so-called “psi energy” run by the face-blind scientist, HARVEY THORNE. But both seers have ulterior motives for wanting to use psi — Harvey is secretly feeding psychic intelligence to the CIA, and Cybil is searching Heaven and Earth for her missing daughter. As their powers grow and they test the limits of what can be
Set in 1973, against the height of the energy crisis, a simmering Cold War, and the dawn of the Age of Aquarius…
discovered with psi, they become entangled in a web of psychic espionage that threatens not only their lives, but the delicate balance of reality itself.
CYBIL STARGAZER
CYBIL (50) is a famous astrologer and best-selling author who steps off her book tour to join the Remote Viewing Program at The Future Institute. Cybil Stargazer is her pen-name of course – she never reveals her true identity. Cybil is slightly glamorous, certainly intellectual, ethereal, otherworldly, and remote. She’s demonstrated a natural gift for psi, and with Harvey’s coaching, her abilities sharpen dramatically.
CYBIL STARGAZER
Through her latest book, she heralds the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, an optimistic and unbounded astrological forecast for the millennium to come. But in her private life, she spends all her free time and considerable wealth searching Heaven and Earth for her missing daughter.
HARVEY THORNE
If Harvey comes off as awkward, brash, or off-putting it’s only because he has a condition called prosopagnosia — face-blindness. He only recognizes people by their hair, and then only sometimes, which has kept him disconnected from other people. Instead of having relationships, he throws himself into his research, spearheading the Remote Viewing Program with the outward belief that standardizing clairvoyance will end the Cold War, and an inward hope that developing “second sight” will et him bypass his disability. But the promise of fame and recognition for his work make him turn a blind eye to the fact that his benefactors are CIA handlers pumping him for physic intel for use in real and psychic warfare. Cybil is the rare person Harvey feels a connection to, and he becomes obsessed with developing her clairvoyant gifts, fine-tuning her like a radio.
THE FUTURE INSTITUTE
Cybil, Harvey, and their colleagues live and work at thea far-flung human potential center
The Future lies on the coastal cliffs of Northern California at the rare nexus of spring water, fresh water, and ocean water. Here it is believed the that mineral hot springs have mystical healing powers..
The New Age mystics, free thinkers, and scientists of the Future Institute represent the bleeding edge of alternative scientific investigation -- studying every iteration of altered consciousness from meditation and yoga to psychedelics, hypnosis, past lives, astral projection and mystical sex.
Think of them like the X-Men… in search of their superpowers..
But a rash of death and disappearance has been running through their scientific community, and no one at The Future believes in coincidence… When their colleague turns up dead, it sets off alarm bells among their community. After all, you’re not paranoid if they’re after you……
But even the threat of death won’t keep them from their work. The other members of the Future work alongside Harvey and Cybil in Remote Viewing Program making psychic discoveries as a group…
but when Cybil asks Harvey to help her find her missing daughter using psi, they begin to work one-on-one, where Harvey uses the pretense of locating her daughter as a black op to generate psychic intel for the CIA. Soon their program is joined by a special guest …
ROWDY PHILLIPS
is an astronaut on his way to the Moon who shares in their fascination with psi and all things otherworldly, and he volunteers to conduct a RV experiment from outer space.
Rowdy is no stranger to the awesome and the uncanny – he grew up in Roswell, New Mexico where he saw the first atomic bomb explode over the desert, and he was at ground zero for the original debates around flying saucers and nonhuman intelligence. His childhood was shaped by the military’s crusade to control the building blocks of reality, so he became a naval pilot on track for an Apollo mission. But his trip to outer space will trigger a spiritual awakening none of his training could prepare him for.
When Rowdy finally makes landfall at The Future, Cybil is star struck. As an astrologer, she’s always looked to the stars for answers, and in Rowdy she sees an astronaut who’s been to the heavens as a man who’s walked between worlds. They begin a steamy affair that feels as spiritual and cosmic as it is hot and heavy. But Harvey feels threatened by their connection and has Rowdy “reassigned” …
But when Cybil starts to connect their Remote Viewing sessions to real-world military attacks, she finds no easy way out of the Program, especially once her powers begin to scare her CIA Handlers.
As the bodies start to pile up and her psychic abilities manifest in unforeseen and unsettling ways, horror starts to creep in from all sides – terror of the CIA’s black bag, and the horror that they might have warped reality itself.
Tonally, SUPERCONSCIOUS will have —
MELANCHOLIA
— the magic realism, cosmic horror, and starry imagery of —
UNDER THE SKIN
— the sci-fi horror and hypnotic rhythm of —
THE ENDLESS
— the cosmic horror of —
CONTACT
— the existential loneliness and intergalactic searching of —
WATCHER IN THE WOODS
— the interdimensional supernatural horror of —
VISUALS
Obscured faces reflect Harvey’s prosopagnosia, and our wider themes of sight, second sight, clarity, and blindness
Curtains and veils will represent the Iron Curtain, but also the veil between worlds that Cybil is trying so hard to pierce so she can be reunited with her daughter, the veil that separates our reality from other realms, dimensions, timelines, and separates the living from the dead.
BUDGET / SHOOTING PLAN
Seeking $4mm in financing for a 5-week shoot in Northern Minnesota in Summer/Fall 2027, leveraging the region’s stackable tax incentives that yield up to 70% cash back
THE DIRECTOR
Christianne Hedtke is an LA-based TV writer, director, and astrologer, known for writing on all four seasons of CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA (Netflix). Her sophomore directorial effort, the short film “SUPERCONSCIOUS,” premiered at the 2026 Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans where The Hollywood Reporter named it one of the festival’s Scariest Short Films. It subsequently won the Audience Choice Award for Fiction Short at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. Hedtke has been a fellow of the Sundance Episodic Story Lab (2015), the Warner Bros. TV Writers’ Workshop (2018), and a finalist for NBC-Universal’s Writers on the Verge (2017), the Humanitas Prize’s New Voices Fellowship (2017), and a two-time semi-finalist for AFI’s prestigious Directing Women’s Workshop (2022, 2025). She’s been a featured series creator at the Gotham (2016), and a contributor to Filmmaker Magazine. She’s repped by IAG and Manage-ment.
