David William James Elliott's short film I Forgot to Unsubscribe from a Stock Footage Service, a cult hit on the independent festival circuit, is set to debut on YouTube on July 24, 2026. The film, which has earned dozens of awards including Best Stunt and Best Female Director—despite being directed by a man and composed entirely of stock footage—will be released on the newly launched channel of RIOUGA (Royal Institute of Objectively Universally Good Art), a startup production company co-founded by Elliott and Juan Sebastian Carcosa.
The film's premise stems from a common real-life annoyance: signing up for a free trial, forgetting to cancel, and being stuck with an annual fee. In the story, a filmmaker embarks on increasingly desperate schemes to reclaim his money using the very stock footage he is stuck paying for. When given a chance to walk away, he instead doubles down, awakening a dormant desire to become a creator. The piece is part memoir, part metatextual documentary, and part existential horror film for aging millennials trapped in the service industry.
During its festival run, the film screened in cities including Mumbai, Tokyo, Paris, Cannes, London, Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York. It accumulated accolades for its voice work, writing, editing, and a loving homage to David Lynch's Mulholland Drive recreated entirely with stock clips. This bizarre award collection has inspired Elliott's upcoming project exposing scam film festivals, though details remain under wraps until filming concludes.
Elliott, an MIT and Stanford graduate and alumnus of Second City, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Steppenwolf, and The Annoyance, as well as a BJJ Black Belt, famously walked away from an opportunity to write for Saturday Night Live in 2012 to build sustainable farms in developing nations. He credits the subscription mishap with sparking his return to the arts, leading to five other film projects and a poetry book released in the past six months.
RIOUGA, described by its founders as "PBS meets Adult Swim, for burnouts, by burnouts," is an independent arts and culture production company focusing on creativity, the surreal, and the human. It aims to counter both AI and corporate polish while inspiring people to return to their hobbies and dreams. The network is developing three interview series and a collection of short films and documentaries for release through summer and fall 2026.
