Dubai-based writer-director Faisal Hashmi has launched Spine Drop Pictures, a genre label built around one operating rule: keep budgets below $1 million and make the containment part of the storytelling.
The company arrives with an initial slate of three features — Off Plan, Cinder and Latching — all written by Hashmi and set to be directed by him. It also arrives with a body of proof-of-work: ten short films including Amber, Wicken and Skipped that have picked up festival runs and crossed three million combined YouTube views.
The slate
- Off Plan: six connected horror stories across Dubai in a single night, designed as separately scheduled shoots that share crew and resources.
- Cinder: a supernatural thriller in the remote UAE mountains that expands Hashmi’s 2020 Al Ain Film Festival-winning short Amber.
- Latching: a feminist possession-revenge horror set over one night in Karachi, currently in development.
Hashmi’s argument is that a strong concept should carry a contained setting rather than apologise for it. “We need films that aren’t just creatively ambitious, but commercially viable,” he told Deadline.
Why it matters for buyers and planners
For streamers, distributors and slate financiers, the interesting test is the modular design of Off Plan. Because each of the six segments can be produced as a short-form block and scheduled independently, Hashmi lowers the scheduling risk while creating potential standalone assets for festivals, sales or platform marketing. The below-$1 million ceiling also works as a risk frame: if a single title underperforms, the downside is capped and the slate can still recover.
The wider pitch is about sustainability in an emerging market. Hashmi contrasts a single costly film with a portfolio of recoverable titles. He points to low-budget, high-concept horror as proof of international potential, though the report does not attach revenue figures to those examples. “A sustainable film industry isn’t built on getting one expensive film financed,” he said. “It’s built on making films that can find audiences, recover their investments and help finance the next one.”
What comes next
Spine Drop Pictures is now exploring slate investment, international co-productions, strategic financing and distribution partnerships for the three features. Separately, Hashmi stays attached to write and direct Fractal, an English-language time-loop horror-thriller with Jason Flemyng and Gabriela Vargas, produced by Vienna-based Pont Pictures and targeting a 2027 shoot in Serbia.
For media planners tracking where low-cost genre supply is coming from, the Spine Drop slate is an early signal of a UAE indie pipeline positioning itself for global platform pickup.
Source: Deadline
