Twenty years ago, Katlyn was pulled from the wreckage of a Russian mob raid and hand-selected for a darker purpose. She wasn’t just adopted; she was indoctrinated and weaponized. Raised as the protégé of the Doyen—the formidable woman who masterminded her family’s massacre—Katlyn was forged into a paragon of lethal precision. By eighteen, she was a ghost with a blade, a “daughter” built from the ashes of her own stolen history.
Now, nearly a decade later, the mask has slipped. The woman Katlyn called “Mother” is not her savior, but the architect of her trauma. The life she has led is a masterpiece of deception, and the debt of the past is finally due. To reclaim her identity, Katlyn must turn her deadly artistry against the woman who taught her everything she knows. To walk the road to freedom, she must kill the person who created her.
Behind the Lens
Written and directed by Chadwick Pelletier, The Road Less Traveled is a visceral exploration of the violent price of agency. Picking up years after the events of the Mother Russia feature screenplay, this short film follows a woman’s final, bloody bridge between a stolen childhood and a reclaimed future.