Degree of Certainty — production still

Degree of Certainty

Short Film · 2026

an AFI Conservatory production
supported by Amazon MGM Studios and Thüringer Staatskanzlei

It's 1982, and Jackson Miller, a young risk analyst at one of the biggest US oil companies, fears for his job. The company loses millions every day due to falling oil prices, and he must prove that he can come up with ideas that address the issue. But when he comes across the latest findings of the company's own climate science department, who just discovered a rapid rise in global temperature, he has to decide on which side of history he wants to be.

Festival Award Festival Award Festival Award

Cast

  • Trace Guzmán
  • Peter Mackenzie
  • John Billingsley
  • Rob Nagle
  • Jonathan von Mering
  • Christian Haines

Crew

  • Director Simon Schneider
  • Writer Simon Schneider
  • Producer Maxwell Kagan
  • Cinematographer Eliot Grigo
  • Editor Jason Sen Luo
  • Production Designer Jessica Burnam
  • Casting Director Marin Hope, C.S.A.
  • Composer Kole Butler
  • Costume Designer Coleen Chan
  • Hair & Makeup Brandy Williams
  • Visual Effects Ciara Borgards
  • Sound Designer & Mixer Kai Scheer
  • Colorist Matt Wallach

The systems and crises we live in today did not arise by chance. They were created by people in power, and their decisions in the past. The story of the discovery of the climate crisis is exactly this story. Not only were it the scientists of the biggest US oil corporations who first discovered the climate crisis in the late 70s / early 80s, it was those same companies who then launched the biggest misinformation crisis in history to deny their own research. To understand how we ended up in the reality we are living today, we have to look into the past and confront the decisions that took us here. Only if we understand the system that created and escalated the climate and misinformation crises by design can we find a way out of them.

Degree of Certainty — Poster
  • Amazon MGM Studios Innovative Storyteller Grant (Winner)
  • Carole Dorothy Joyce Grant (Winner)
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Production Award 2024 (Nominee)
  • Roy W. Dean Short Film Grant 2024 (Finalist)
  • Shore Scripts Short Film Fund Grant 2024 (Semifinalist)