Nirvana

“Nirvana” is a psychological thriller where two catholic school students venture into the hood during New Year’s Eve and end up in trouble and spiral into a psychedelic fever dream that escalates to where any moment could lead towards an overdose as the other must bring his friend towards the universal code of love in order to save his soul.

The logline is intense. But so is the final scene. 

A fish-out-of-water story where seemingly religious people go explore atheism and nihilism and find the troubles that follow, a rite-of-passage where in the end they find the divine, get saved, and the film ends in a cathartic celebration of humanity.

Alice in Wonderland meets Requiem for a Dream. Documentary-like filmmaking mixed with the fantasy genre. A gritty mix of hood noir, ancient archetypes, and hallucinogenic cinema, Nirvana is a realism grounded spiritual nightmare film.

The protagonist, a foreign teenage outsider in the United States spirals into a psychedelic underworld and undergoes a metaphysical journey during a drug-induced coma. As he crosses into different realms of reality, he must come to terms with his estranged girlfriend in order to emerge—or be destroyed.

The themes pit religion and drug-use against each other and in the end faith and love wins.

© Nikolas Keskilammi 2025

Proof-of-concept Nirvana; Ancient Vision Quest
https://openfilmzone.com/videos/nirvana-ancient-vision-quest/