What starts as a father's playful attempt to get three boys off their computers during a summer vacation evolves into an extraordinary 17-year chronicle of friendship, dreams, and growing up.

Seventeen years ago, acclaimed Polish documentary filmmaker Maciej Cuske took his son and two friends on a camper van trip across Poland. To keep them entertained, he suggested they shoot an amateur horror movie. None of them expected this single experiment to grow into a lifelong tradition. Blending documentary and coming-of-age cinema, it is as if the kids from Stand By Me decided to spend two decades making a homemade thriller, guided by a dad-director who refuses to grow up.

Year after year, the crew reunites to shoot the next episode of their saga. But while they are busy staging elaborate deaths and jump scares, something much more profound unfolds in front of the camera: real life.

The boys grow up. Dreams shift, friendships are tested, and adulthood arrives with its heavy responsibilities. Rafał struggles to turn his filmmaking ambitions into a career. Adrian chooses a stable corporate life while searching for love. Stasiu, the director’s son, becomes a cinematographer while confronting his fears about relationships. Meanwhile, the father—once the playful initiator of the game—faces his own transformations, losses, and hopes.

Funny, tender, and beautifully melancholic, Candidates of Death captures the strange magic of making movies together, and the profound journey of simply growing older.