An epic, deeply human tale of love, grief and alienation, The Darkest Universe is the strange, ambitious second feature film from Will Sharpe and Tom Kingsley, the BAFTA nominated directors of Black Pond.

With a kaleidoscopic narrative structure, bold cinematography and the occasional UFO, The Darkest Universe is a comedy psychodrama that mixes grungey phone footage with the trippy science fiction imagery of parallel universes and the dark earthly aesthetic of the British waterways - an eccentric and heartfelt film that is ultimately about the stories we must tell ourselves to get by.

Zac is a lonely, highly strung city trader on the edge of a psychological breakdown. He has lost his job, his girlfriend and, most devastatingly, his weird and wayward younger sister Alice, the only family he had left.

Alice is now a missing person, having disappeared on a narrow boat trip along with her boyfriend Toby, a kindred drifter and misfit. Zac becomes increasingly frustrated with the futile attempts of the police to find any sign of them or the forty foot boat and decides to take matters into his own inexpert hands. He starts a terribly executed video blog and scours the dark canals of the UK in a desperate search for clues.

Struggling for information and fast losing hope, Zac reflects on his past and the difficult relationship he had with Alice. Wracked with guilt and regret, his sanity starts to unravel as he fights with memories of her in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. As he remembers her sweetly burgeoning relationship with the mysterious Toby, however, he begins to wonder if there may in fact be a grander, wilder, much stranger explanation for their disappearance…