The 19-minute film from Comedy Central sketch directors Daniel Audritt and Kat Butterfield explores mortality, family and the things we leave unsaid.
BAFTA-winning actor David Bradley is set to lead the darkly comic short film Life Goes On, which will make its Los Angeles premiere at the HollyShorts Film Festival. The 19-minute film brings together a remarkable British ensemble, including Emmy nominee and BAFTA winner Matt Berry, alongside Maggie Steed, Laura Checkley, Amanda Root, and a host of acclaimed screen and stage performers.
Directed and written by Daniel Audritt and Kat Butterfield, Life Goes On follows Bill, a terminally ill man played by Bradley, who finds himself trapped in an infinite time loop on what should be his final day on Earth. What begins as a strange and potentially unsettling premise gradually becomes an unexpectedly warm and hopeful story about family, vulnerability, mortality and the importance of saying the things that matter to the people who matter most.
A Dark Comedy About Life, Death and Everything Left Unsaid
At the center of Life Goes On is Bill, a man facing the final stage of his life while somehow being forced to experience the same day repeatedly. Rather than treating the concept purely as science fiction or existential horror, Audritt and Butterfield use the time loop as a framework for exploring deeply recognizable human emotions.
Bill’s predicament creates an unusual opportunity. With the same day repeating, moments that might normally disappear into the rush of everyday life become impossible to ignore. The film uses that repetition to examine relationships, unfinished conversations and the emotional barriers that can prevent people from saying what they truly feel.
The result is a darkly comic but ultimately uplifting story that finds humor in an inherently difficult subject while maintaining genuine emotional tenderness.
David Bradley Leads an Extraordinary Cast
Bradley brings decades of experience to the central role of Bill. The BAFTA-winning actor is internationally recognized for performances across film and television, including Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Frankenstein, Hot Fuzz, and After Life.
His ability to move between dramatic intensity and comedy makes him particularly suited to the unusual tonal balance of Life Goes On. Bill is dealing with an extraordinarily serious situation, but the film refuses to allow mortality to become entirely bleak. Bradley’s performance anchors that balance, allowing the character’s vulnerability and humor to coexist.
Joining him is Matt Berry, the Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning actor and comedian best known for What We Do in the Shadows and Toast of London. Berry’s presence adds another distinctive comedic voice to an ensemble that also includes Maggie Steed, known for 10 Percent, Fisherman’s Friends, and Paddington 2, and Laura Checkley, whose credits include King Gary, The Detectorists, and Military Wives.
The supporting cast includes Tony nominee Amanda Root, known for Baby Reindeer; Paul G Raymond, who appeared in Wonka; Brona C. Titley from Motherland; Jayne Aguire from Black Doves; Mark Davison from Stath Lets Flats; Joe Da Costa from Uncle; and Ninette Finch, known for The Great.
Together, the ensemble gives the film a strong theatrical and comedic pedigree while allowing its emotional story to remain at the center.
From Comedy Central Sketches to Narrative Filmmaking
Life Goes On marks the debut short film from writing and directing duo Daniel Audritt and Kat Butterfield, whose previous work has largely been rooted in comedy.
The pair are best known for their work on Comedy Central’s online sketch series Modern Horror Stories, which was nominated for Debut Writer at the Edinburgh TV Festival New Voice Awards. They also worked on the LOVIE Award-winning Comic Relief Originals series, which included the memorable sketch Stephen Hawking’s New Voice, featuring Anna Kendrick and Eddie Redmayne and broadcast on BBC One and NBC America.
Their transition from short-form sketch comedy into narrative filmmaking brings a distinctive sensibility to Life Goes On. The filmmakers are able to use comedy to approach difficult subjects without stripping them of emotional weight.
The result is a film that can move between absurdity and vulnerability while maintaining a clear sense of purpose.
A Story Inspired by Personal Experience
A Story Inspired by Personal ExperienceFor Butterfield, the subject carries particular personal significance. Before moving into filmmaking, she worked in the fundraising team at a hospice in her hometown in Lancashire, an experience that helped inspire the film.
More recent experiences with family illness and bereavement also contributed to the story’s emotional foundation.
Those experiences appear to have informed the film’s approach to mortality. Rather than presenting death solely as tragedy, Life Goes On considers the emotional complexity surrounding the end of life, including the awkwardness, humor, fear and love that can exist alongside grief.
The film’s central message is therefore not simply about dying. It is about making sure we are present for the people we love while we still have the opportunity to be.
An Ambitious Independent Production
The film was created through Audacious Productions, the banner operated by Audritt and Butterfield, with the filmmakers self-funding the production while also serving as producers.
The production was filmed in December 2025 at Hospital Studios in West London, giving the filmmakers the opportunity to build a contained world around Bill’s unusual experience.
The creative team includes cinematographer Hamish Anderson, known for Black Dog; production designer Sophie Swinton, whose credits include Rosie Molloy Gives Up Everything; costume designer Patrick Jack Whelan; hair and makeup artist Branka Vorkapic, who worked on Wicked; casting director Francesca Bradley, known for Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die; composer Jérémy Velez; and editor Hettie Griffiths, whose credits include We Might Regret This for the BBC.
The collaboration between these departments gives the short a polished visual identity while supporting the unusual tonal combination at the heart of the story.
A Festival Run Already Making an Impact
Life Goes On began its festival journey with a World Premiere at the Dallas International Film Festival, an Oscar-qualifying festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Best International Short.
The recognition continued as the film was selected for a further five Oscar-qualifying festivals, including Indy Shorts and Bali, as well as Raindance, where it received a nomination for Best UK Short.
Its festival success reflects the film’s ability to balance accessible comedy with a subject that can be difficult to approach.
The HollyShorts screening represents another important milestone, bringing the film to Los Angeles and placing it before an audience with a strong connection to emerging short-form filmmakers and awards-season cinema.
Finding Hope Inside a Time Loop
The time-loop premise of Life Goes On could easily have been used simply as a clever narrative device. Instead, Audritt and Butterfield use it to ask a more personal question: If you had the opportunity to relive your final day, what would you change?
The answer may not necessarily involve a grand gesture. It could be a conversation that was avoided, an apology that was never offered, or an expression of love that remained unspoken.
That idea gives the film its emotional universality. Even audiences who have never experienced anything resembling Bill’s extraordinary circumstances can recognize the regret of leaving important things unsaid.
The film’s comedy makes that recognition easier to approach, while its underlying sincerity ensures that the emotional questions remain long after the laughter fades.
What Does It Mean to Truly Live?
Despite its premise, Life Goes On is ultimately less interested in death than it is in life.
Bill’s repeated final day becomes a reminder of how easily ordinary moments can pass without us recognizing their significance. The film suggests that vulnerability is not weakness and that acknowledging fear, love or grief can be an act of courage.
Its dark humor creates room to discuss mortality without becoming overwhelmed by it, while its emotional core keeps the story grounded in the relationships that give life meaning.
As one review from UK Film Review observed, the film delicately moves between human warmth, hope and grief, using the familiar time-loop concept in a fresh way.
A Short Film With a Big Emotional Question
With an accomplished cast, an experienced creative team and an increasingly successful festival run, Life Goes On arrives at HollyShorts with plenty of momentum.
But its greatest strength may be its simplicity. Beneath the time-loop concept, dark comedy and impressive ensemble is a story about people struggling to communicate what matters most.
Audritt and Butterfield have created a film that approaches mortality with humor rather than fear and vulnerability rather than sentimentality.
As Life Goes On makes its Los Angeles premiere, the film offers audiences something both entertaining and unexpectedly reflective: a reminder that while none of us can control how much time we have, we can choose what we do with the time we are given.
And sometimes, the most important thing we can do is simply tell someone we love them before the day comes around again.
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