The Catchers: Friendship, Music, and the Higgsfield Global Film Festival
Some friendships do not disappear when life gets busy. They grow quieter for a while, then find their way back.
That idea is at the heart of The Catchers, a dialogue-free animated short that Max Kai and I created together as Druzya for the Higgsfield Global Film Festival 2026.
If you know me through my rock music, this is a change of pace. But music is still at the center of it—helping tell a story without a single spoken conversation.
## Watch The Catchers
[Watch The Catchers on YouTube](https://youtu.be/VQS0GtBzUPc)
## A friendship across time and distance
The story begins when two children meet in a shop filled with sun catchers and dream catchers. Their friendship continues across two very different worlds: one filled with seaside sunlight, the other with changing seasons.
Through letters, music, and a little magic, they share pieces of their lives. Childhood becomes adolescence, and adolescence becomes adulthood. New experiences, responsibilities, and separate paths begin to change the rhythm of their connection.
The Catchers explores what happens when a friendship pauses without necessarily ending. Sometimes, even after time apart, the connection is still there.
The sun catcher and dream catcher are more than objects in the story. They also echo the idea behind the title: two friends catching and carrying pieces of each other’s worlds.
## From Max’s original idea to the finished film
The original concept and script were Max’s, inspired by our own own friendship with communication being across continents. He also created the hand-drawn artwork and visual references that established the characters and art style, generated the film’s clips through Higgsfield, developed the music with Suno, and edited the video.
His drawings provided the starting point for the AI-generated visuals. Keeping the characters recognizable as they grew older, and connecting their separate environments through mirrored actions and shared moments, were important parts of bringing the story to life.
My role was the final soundtrack assembly, sound editing, and mixing. Together, those contributions became The Catchers.
## Letting music and sound tell the story
Without dialogue, music and sound have a lot to communicate. They help establish a place, suggest a feeling, and connect one moment to the next.
I worked in MAGIX Video deluxe 2026 to bring together the separate music layers, ambience, and sound effects. That meant working on timing, transitions, and volume balance so the soundtrack supported the picture.
Finding the right tone mattered. We wanted warmth without making every moment overly sweet, and enough space for the quieter scenes to breathe. The small sounds were important too: they helped give the characters’ worlds a sense of life beyond the music.
The soundtrack combines AI-generated music created with Suno, audio from the Higgsfield clips, and additional AI-generated sound effects from ElevenLabs. Selected audio also underwent cleanup and music separation before being incorporated into the final mix.
## The Higgsfield Global Film Festival
The festival brings together short films made using Higgsfield’s visual-generation tools and offers a $1 million prize pool across 14 awards. Its judging criteria include storytelling, visual craft, sound and editing, and originality.
Under the published process, Higgsfield screens entries and compiles a creative-team shortlist. An independent jury then selects the main prizes and honorable mentions, while a separate community vote determines the Audience Choice Award.
As of September 19, 2026, the published schedule lists screening and shortlist compilation through October 5, jury review from October 6–11, and a winner announcement toward the end of October. The official festival rules and timeline are the place to check for updates. [Official festival rules and timeline](https://higgsfield.ai/contests/higgsfield-global-film-festival?tab=rules)
## A different kind of music-led storytelling
The Catchers is a different kind of project for my music audience, and I’m glad to be able to share this side of my creative work.
At its heart, it is a story about friendship—not being constantly present in someone’s day, but still having a place in their life.
If you have a few minutes, I hope you’ll watch the film above. Did it remind you of someone? Have you ever reconnected with a friend and felt as though you could pick up right where you left off?
I’d love to hear what the story meant to you.
**Two worlds. One friendship. A lifetime of catching pieces of each other.