Film Birmingham spotlights Birmingham-made short One Way Ticket To Nowhere

A Birmingham-made short about Michael Mulligan’s first day of freedom after years of incarceration is already moving beyond the city, carrying a full local cast and crew into festival circulation. One Way Ticket To Nowhere was written, filmed and produced in Birmingham, with Film Birmingham noting that every person on set was a Birmingham native.

Maximos Tatum wrote, directed and edited the film, and Film Birmingham identifies him as a 24-year-old Alabama-born filmmaker whose work centers on emotion, the inner world and character-driven storytelling with darker, surreal Southern undercurrents. Kevin Wayne leads the cast as Michael Mulligan, joined by Kate Edmonds as Mary, Janelle Cochrane as Mama, Charlie Martin as Cashier, James Binzer as Officer and Nathan Fisher as Dealer. The spotlight also lists Brivel Bariki, Kevin Wayne and Margarita Reyes as executive producers.

The technical side is just as rooted in Birmingham. Baylon Wood served as director of photography, Margarita Reyes produced, Logan Lowery composed the original score and Brennan Martignoni handled color. Kyle Roberts worked as gaffer, Dalten Martin as assistant director, Blake Whatley as first assistant camera and Brady Hosmer as second assistant camera. Film Birmingham also says the short was filmed in Birmingham, Alabama with entirely local crew, which gives the project a distinctly homegrown backbone from preproduction through post.

Tatum’s collaboration with Wood is not new. Film Birmingham notes that the two have worked together on earlier projects including The Pink Snake Pit, Haunted Henry and You’re Already Somebody, a detail that points to the kind of recurring creative partnerships that often keep Alabama indie productions moving. That familiarity can matter in a short-film ecosystem where speed, trust and a lean crew often decide whether a project gets finished cleanly and finds an audience afterward.

That audience is already starting to widen. One Way Ticket To Nowhere has been accepted into the American Stories Film Festival in Atlanta, a quarterly hybrid festival that screens in person and online. Event listings placed the Atlanta screening on February 20, 2026 at Cinefest Film Theatre, giving the short a concrete launch point outside Birmingham while still preserving its regional identity.

The film fits squarely into Film Birmingham’s larger mission as the film office for the Greater Birmingham region, where the organization says it works to create job opportunities, generate revenues, raise regional visibility and advocate economic development. Film Birmingham operates as an initiative of Create Birmingham, which says film work helps build a skilled local workforce and draws more productions into the city.

That broader policy backdrop matters. Birmingham renewed its agreement with Create Birmingham in January 2026 to promote film production, and the city also approved a $160,000 grant to keep attracting film and television work. For a short like One Way Ticket To Nowhere, those moves help explain how a local project can be made with Birmingham talent, packaged through Birmingham institutions and sent out with a real chance to travel.