They Will All Die in Space

Phil Eberhart (Ben Temple) and Dan Atenas (Francesc Garrido) are crew members of the starship Tantalus. Dan removes Alexander Talabot (Julio Perillán) from one of dozens of cryogenic chambers aboard the ship. Phil explains to Alexander that they have reanimated him because an asteroid shower nearly destroyed the Tantalus four months after departure; the crew has been adrift for six months without any form of communication and having lost its main engine. Alexander suggests that they reanimate his wife, who has the technical skills to help the men out of their predicament, but Eberhart tells him that the ship is doomed to drift through space until supplies run out, and asks Alexander if that is the fate to which he wants to subject his wife. As Alexander works on repairs, he grows more suspicious about Phil and Dan.

• Francesc Garrido as Dan Atenas
• Julio Perillán as Alex Talabot
• Ben Temple as Phil Eberhart

After directing two other short films involving returning astronauts (one of which a chimpanzee), the mockumentary Die Schneider Krankheit (2008)^[8] and Decapoda Shock (2011),^[9] Javier Chillon wanted to do something a bit more conventional, a film that was "straight up science fiction" with no supernatural elements,^[10] something closer to a detective story: he had always liked the idea of a starship stranded in space, and one day the story just came to him.^[7][11] While classic science fiction films like Alien and Outland were major inspirations, Chillon was mainly influenced by what helped inspire those films in the first place: "the whole French new wave of science fiction comic books in the 60s and 70s," such as Métal hurlant, Valérian, and artists such as Moebius, Enki Bilal,^[10][11] Juan Giménez, and Frederik Peeters.^[12]

Chillon worked on the film for four years (from script writing to filming was three years), keeping costs down by borrowing space and equipment from his associate producers: a sound stage belonging to Behind the Movies, and a RED camera from Morituri.^{[10][12][13][14]}

The biggest part of the project was the sets, which Chillon and his crew built "from scratch" with a view to minimising the need for CGI,^[10] but also for aesthetic reasons related to his influences.^[11] Most of the visual effects are old-fashioned models made with the help of José Luis Orive (called "Rambo") to create different spaces on the ship; the relatively little CGI was done by User T38, integrating, creating the astronaut in 3D, the spacecraft, and so on.^[12]

Chillon said the three actors, Francesc Garrido, Julio Perillán and Ben Temple, understood their roles and the tone of the story perfectly.^[12] Chillon and his director of photography, Luis Fuentes, thought of the film as something of a mixture of science fiction and thriller,^[10][12] and decided to shoot the film in black and white to inject a sense of noir into the story.^[10]

They Will All Die in Space had its premiere at the 35th Fantafestival in Rome on 25 June 2015.^[15][16] In less than two years, the short had been selected for nearly 300 film festivals worldwide,^[17] where it received much praise.^[10] By March 2019, the short had been shown at 336 festivals.^[16]

They Will All Die in Space is included in the 2017 Canadian science-fiction horror anthology film Galaxy of Horrors, which comprises eight shorts within a larger narrative frame in which a man awakens from a cryogenic sleep pod and is forced to watch the shorts as entertainment while his damaged life-support runs out. The anthology film had its premiere in Toronto at Imagine Cinemas Carlton on 1 March 2017.^[18] the feature was conceived by Little Terrors short films festival founder Justin McConnell, who directed the narrative frame, and Indiecan Entertainment's Avi Federgreen.^[19] The production is the second collaboration between Rue Morgue Cinema and Little Terrors, following Minutes Past Midnight.^[20]

The film is available to view on Vimeo in its entirety, and is a Vimeo Staff Pick.^[21]

The Galaxy of Horrors anthology was released on DVD and special edition Blu-ray in 2017. The anthology was made available through various video on demand options on the IndieCan Entertainment website,^[22] on 7 March 2017,^[23] and on Amazon Prime.^[24]