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🎬 Written & Directed by Derry Shillitto
🤝A collaboration with Foyle River Films
💥 Shot in Nottingham with a local cast & crew
📽 International distribution
The Correction Unit is an original feature. A sci-fi thriller about power, technology and the young lives shaped by both. It’s part Attack the Block, part Get Out, all set in a very near-future dystopia where AI runs a reform facility for young offenders.
Think invasive tech, AI-powered education, and a generation fighting to take control back.
Shot in schools, woods and car parks across Nottingham. The whole thing’s a passion project - one with street-cast teens, an all-local crew, and a commitment to telling a powerful, cinematic story without compromising on ethics.
This is what filmmaking looks like outside the studio system.
In a city buckling under poverty and violence, Shawn, a young offender, is kicked out of yet another institute. His last chance? A new government-backed AI reform programme called nTrac.
At first, it seems like a clean slate. But soon, nTrac starts to overstep - tracking thoughts, controlling emotions, rewriting trauma. When a fellow inmate is found dead, Shawn and his friends must break free before they’re rewritten too.
The Correction Unit explores what happens when compassion is replaced by code. When AI is trusted to “fix” the most vulnerable. And when the system decides who deserves a second chance - and who doesn't.
🎬 A full-length feature shot over 9 months around Nottingham
🎭 Street-cast performances from young people directly impacted by crime
📍 Local locations including schools, tech campuses and woodland
📹 4K cinematography with original score, VFX and high-end post
💬 A cast & crew of 50+ creatives, including first-time actors
🌍 Distribution deal secured with a Hollywood-based distribution company
This film isn’t just about AI - it’s about justice, empathy, and what happens when systems treat people like problems to be solved.
Writer-director Derry Shillitto, a former teacher, was inspired by what he saw in lockdown: young people failed by both tech and education. He wanted to write something thrilling - but grounded in truth.
Many of our young cast members have first-hand experience with youth services and crime. Through this film, they shared their voices, their fears, their ideas. We paid them properly. We supported them. And we’re helping them get representation off the back of this work.
🎒 All catering on set was 100% plant-based
🚙 Shared transport and carpooling for all crew
🥗 Leftover food donated to Open Kitchen (Nottingham food charity)
🧠 Crew wellbeing support and anti-exploitation policies throughout
🎥 Paid experience for young people in every department
🧨 Feature-length film shot on a micro-budget
🌍 Distribution deal confirmed
🏆 A launching pad for several young performers, one going on to star in Shane Meadows new film
🎥 A festival-ready original IP which tackles one of the most urgent issues of our time
The film is now released and will be dropping on streaming platforms globally as well as playing theatrically at local cinemas within the East Midlands. Watch this space for further news and festival appearances.
And we’re already developing the next story.
