United Kingdom (Milwaukee Premiere)
Running Time: 13 Minutes
Screening Time: Juried Films 7pm. Oct 26th
Tickets $10.00 Buy Tickets Here:
James seeks nothing more than to make his young son happy. The boy's obsession with getting waved back from the morning train affects his otherwise happy childhood.
James sets off to the nearby town to take the morning train but meets a mysterious old stranger in a hotel the night before.
Trailer
Website
Director Statement
The short story by Siegfried Lenz, which this film is based on, is made up of three conversations and a very brief and distant description of a father’s journey from a hotel to his home village. The short story was written and published in West-Germany in 1947. Although this story is evidently set in a destroyed and defeated Germany, I felt it could be translated to any place in the world. Therefore, the true setting of the film is never revealed, only that there was a war.
What intrigued me, as a filmmaker, was that this story was an old man’s tale of overcoming a very painful past and finding a reason to carry on by waving back to this child from the train.
However, the story is told from the father’s point of view, who acts as a conduit between his son and the old man. Both are at opposite ends of the spectrum: one is an old man who has lost all hope and affection for life (hence the cynical comments on suicide) and the other is a young sensitive boy searching for hope (or, if you like, a tangible sense of generosity: someone to wave back to him from the train).
In order to make this story work in a film, I made the old man’s catharsis on the train the focal point and fi- nal goal of the emotional build up of the film. I did this by adding a train waving sequence into the film which isn’t present in the short story by Lenz.
The reason I believe that this story is still relevant to- day, is because it provides us with an easily transmut- able pathway into what people must endure in times of hardship, but, above all, how they can find hope in times where all hope seems to have vanished.
Screenings
San Jose International Short Film Festival
San Jose, U S A
October 2013 (Film Festival)
Heartland Film Festival
Indianapolis, U S A
October 2013 (Film Festival)
New Orleans Film Festival
New Orleans, U S A
October 2013 (Film Festival)
Thurrock International Film Festival
Nominated for Best Fiction, Best Direction, Best Editing
Thurrock, United Kingdom
September 2013 (Film Festival)
Isle of Wight Film Festival
Ventnor, United Kingdom
August 2013 (Film Festival)
HollyShorts International Short Film Festival
Hollywood, U S A
August 2013 (Film Festival)
North America PREMIERE
Salento Finibus Terrae International Film Festival
San Vito dei Normanni, Italy
July 2013 (Film Festival)
Edinburgh International Short Film Festival
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
June 2013 (Film Festival)
Limelight Film Awards
Winner - Best Drama
London, United Kingdom
June 2013 (Film Festival)
Fastnet International Short Film Festival
Schull, Ireland
May 2013 (Film Festival)
20min|max International Film Festival
Ingolstadt, Germany
May 2013 (Film Festival)
Western Europe PREMIERE
Cluj Shorts International Film Festival
Cluj, Romania
April 2013 (Film Festival)
Eastern Europe PREMIERE
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