KAINO70

KAINO70 · Short Film

The Sea Pagoda Shadow

Saigon, June 1966. War photojournalist Jörg Nachtnebel and orphan Sarah are thrown together by a stolen film canister and a cryptic photograph. With only thirteen minutes on the clock, they must decode a puzzle hidden in shadow, memory, and the city's restless streets - before the truth vanishes and history turns on a single frame.

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Synopsis

A five-minute thriller told in sixty Leica-still micro-shots.

The Sea Pagoda Shadow is an AI-generated short war-historical thriller, told through sixty hyper-realistic Leica-still micro-shots. Gritty, intimate, and suspenseful, it is a story about the images we keep, the secrets they hold, and the people who risk everything to bring them to light.

Jörg Nachtnebel - war photojournalist - and Sarah, a streetwise orphan, have nothing in common but a stolen film canister and a photograph that shouldn't exist. As the clock ticks down from thirteen minutes, the city turns against them: every shadow a clue, every stranger a threat. Decode it in time, and a buried truth comes to light. Fail, and history is rewritten by a single frame.

The Sea Pagoda Shadow - Official trailer

Cast

Two strangers. One frame.

Jorg - a weathered war photojournalist in his late fifties, olive utility shirt, leather suspenders, and a cross-body vintage film camera, with a press armband.

Jörg Nachtnebel

War photojournalist. Keeper of the canister - and the secrets in it.

Sarah - a young orphan girl with long, wet dark hair and a serious, unflinching gaze, wearing a patterned collared shirt against a plain white background.

Sarah

An orphan who trusts no one. The only one who can read what the photograph really shows.

You in the Film

Be the story. Own the frame.

Character NFT auctions are open. Reserve your place in the film - and a piece of the frame that made it.

Auctions
Minh Tran examining film negatives - a B&W photograph of a young filmmaker kneeling over a contact sheet beside a Leica M3 and an open ammunition trunk.

NYC, 2025

Minh Tran's journey to the negatives - a contemporary exploration of memory, urban isolation, and the photographs that survive us.

Minh's journey
A minimalist round enamel pin - a geometric line-art vintage SLR camera with a glowing lens.

Proof of Patronage NFT

50 $USDC on Manifold

  • Your name in the film's credits
  • Airdrop of a 1/1 B&W photograph from Jörg's private archive
  • Early access to Jörg's AI persona - speak with the photographer a month before the public

Become a foundational patron. Only 66 editions.

Become a patron

Reference

Jörg - character sheet

An 8-view character reference sheet for Jorg, a gray-haired stubbled field photographer in olive military utility wear with a cross-body vintage film camera and press armband - full-body front, profile, 3/4, and back views plus matching headshots, on a plain neutral studio background.
Production reference - Jörg Nachtnebel

Stills

Sixty frames. One city holding its breath.

A middle-aged journalist in a 'Báo Chí' press vest photographs a Saigon street market - a cyclo laden with caged ducks passes as a vendor sells fruit under a wooden shop sign, motorcycles parked in the background.
The press vest - Báo Chí
A tight, intimate close-up of an elderly Vietnamese woman squatting at a street stall, pouring roasted peanuts from a steel scoop into a rolled newspaper cone beside an open-fire wok, the blurred 1966 street market behind her.
The peanut vendor - Đậu Phộng Rang
A hyper-detailed café still: a weathered wooden table holds a black-and-silver Leica M3 camera and its lens cap beside a sweating glass of iced coffee, patrons blurred behind under a peeling wall sign reading 'CA PHÊ · 1966'.
The Leica on the table
A South Vietnamese major in a khaki uniform leans against a peeling wall beside a Nguyen Cao Ky campaign poster and a street shrine, smoking as cyclo traffic moves down a 1960s Saigon street.
The major and the poster

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