David William James Elliott's cult hit short film, I Forgot to Unsubscribe from a Stock Footage Service, will debut on YouTube on July 24, 2026, on the newly launched channel of RIOUGA, a startup production company co-founded by Elliott and Juan Sebastian Carcosa. The film, which has screened at festivals worldwide including Cannes, London, and New York, is based on the all-too-common experience of signing up for a free trial, forgetting about it, and being stuck with an annual fee.
The film follows a filmmaker who devises increasingly desperate schemes to reclaim his money using the stock footage he is now forced to pay for. When offered a chance to walk away, he instead doubles down, realizing a dormant desire to become a creator. Described as part memoir, part metatextual documentary, and part existential horror for aging millennials trapped in the service industry, the piece has accumulated dozens of awards, including Best Stunt and Best Female Director—despite being directed by a man and composed entirely of stock footage.
Elliott, an MIT and Stanford graduate with training from Second City, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Steppenwolf, among others, walked away from an opportunity to write for Saturday Night Live in 2012 to build sustainable farms in developing nations. He credits the subscription snafu with sparking his return to the arts, leading to five other film projects and a poetry book released in the past six months. The film also spawned a spin-off documentary, Hypernormalization 2: Revenge of the Titans, which began as a throwaway gag and went on to win awards from dubious festivals.
RIOUGA (Royal Institute of Objectively Universally Good Art), described by its founders as "PBS meets Adult Swim, for burnouts, by burnouts," aims to counter AI and corporate polish by inspiring people to pick up old hobbies and return to their dreams. The network is developing three interview series alongside a collection of short films and documentaries for release throughout summer and fall. The premiere of I Forgot to Unsubscribe from a Stock Footage Service marks the beginning of RIOUGA's mission to explore fine art and niche subcultures.
The film's bizarre award history—including honors for voice work, writing, editing, and a loving homage to David Lynch's Mulholland Drive recreated entirely with stock clips—has inspired an upcoming project exposing scam film festivals, though Elliott remains tight-lipped until filming concludes.
