Uri Singer and Passage Pictures are positioning this as a vote of confidence in emerging talent — calling Napier and Powers "talented young filmmakers" while framing 'In the Blue' as a "darkly entertaining" exploration of class dynamics.
Sources say Napier and Powers have been aggressively building their resume since Yale, churning out micro-budget work that keeps landing on streaming platforms. Now they've got serious backing for something with real production value — and the yacht claustrophobia premise is already generating buzz in indie circles.
'Voyeur' was produced for $4,000 while Napier and Powers were undergraduates at Yale, later winning Best U.S. Feature AND Audience Award at the 2020 SoHo International Film Festival. Their follow-up 'Floating Carousel' won the Ultra Indie Award for Best Narrative Feature at this year's Woodstock Film Festival.
Two filmmakers went from dorm-room productions to Sundance-adjacent cred in under six years — now they've got a thriller about buried resentments erupting on a luxury yacht. If even half of what Singer describes comes through, this could be the breakout moment for Napier and Powers.
Uri Singer's Passage Pictures has officially boarded "In the Blue," the next feature from writer-director duo Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers — and if you've been sleeping on these two, it's time to pay attention. The pair have been systematically building credibility in independent cinema circles since their undergraduate days at Yale, where they apparently learned that you don't need a big budget to make a lasting impression. The plot of "In the Blue" sounds like premium drama territory: Brie, an aspiring actor and tutor, is offered serious money to help her client Seth finish his college applications during a family yacht trip to the Exumas for the holidays.
Sounds simple enough — until buried resentments start erupting and family tensions spiral into something genuinely dangerous aboard the vessel. Think "The White Lotus" meets nautical claustrophobia. Singer described it as "a perfectly comedic and twisted exploration of power and wealth," which tracks with the simmering class warfare energy embedded in that premise.
What makes Napier and Powers interesting isn't just their latest project — it's their trajectory. Their first feature, "Voyeur," was produced for a staggering $4,000 while they were still undergrads at Yale and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. That film snagged both the Best U.S.
Feature and Audience Award at the 2020 SoHo International Film Festival. They've clearly been building toward something bigger with each project, and "Floating Carousel" — which premiered at this year's Woodstock Film Festival, winning the Ultra Indie Award for Best Narrative Feature — suggests they've found their rhythm. Singer himself has Sundance credentials through his work on Michael Almereyda films like "Tesla" and "Marjorie Prime," plus he's currently producing adaptations of Don DeLillo's "Underworld" with Ted Melfi directing and a James Ellroy project through Amazon/MGM.
Having that kind of support behind Napier and Powers opens doors that micro-budget filmmaking simply cannot. Passage Pictures clearly sees potential here worth investing in — and given the director duo's track record of punching above their weight class, that's not an unreasonable bet. Producer Isabella Zanobini echoed Singer's enthusiasm, calling "In the Blue" exactly the kind of darkly entertaining film audiences will gravitate toward.
Whether that promise translates to a compelling finished product remains to be seen — but with Napier and Powers steering the ship, so to speak, there's reason for cautious optimism. The yacht-set psychological tension premise has all the ingredients for something genuinely unsettling if executed properly. Watch this space.
