First up, Travel Plans, directed by Zoey Sidwell. It’s her debut film and it has its world premiere 18 Jul at LA Shorts International Film Festival.
Krista Amigone has written a short that pulls you in from the first moment. As Erin (played by Amigone) is seen a car on her wedding day, the conversation between her and Jack (Jared Boghosian) takes a somewhat unexpected turn.
It’s a claustrophobic piece which still finds space to say a lot in a few words. Ben (Sean Michael Boozer) is both peripheral and pivotal to the story of Travel Plans.
I liked the cleanness of all three performances and the way just one prop stood for what couldn’t be said or done in the open.
Next, Unfaithful!, directed by Seri DeYoung and written by DeYoung and Otha Cole was screened at this year’s Dances With Films festival.
It satarises reality TV shows like MTV’s Catfish that thrive on confrontation, in this case a boyfriend tailing his unfaithful girlfriend.
But is what we see on camera really the whole story, and what do production companies do to present a particular narrative?
Here, host Shaun (Ronald Auguste) uses the supposedly cuckolded man, Mark (Jack D Fleischer) to pursue his own insecurities for the girlfriend he can only reach by voicemail.
Alexa Sutherland plays Ashley the party presumed to be cheating. Her performance, though brief, captures the manipulation behind the scenes of these programmes.
The one voice of reason and dissent is production assistant Charli (Aimee McGuire), but voices like hers are easily silenced.
I know these shows are heavily edited, but Unfaithful! made me question how far TV or social media have yet to go.