Lockdown Romance

This is the first film I directed, and the first film in which I wore many hats at the same time: writer, actor, and producer (and craft services). Using mostly source lighting, supplemented by two battery-operated tube lights, we filmed this with a total of four people on set: actors, the cinematographer, and the sound mixer. Everyone wore an additional hat or two. This has been an 'if you build it, they will come,' project, and I'm blown away by the talented professionals who contributed. Adam Rifkin’s steadfast mentorship made this film possible.

WHY THIS STORY:

The Surgeon General released an advisory highlighting the epidemic of loneliness exacerbated by Covid lockdown and continuing to grow today. The advisory makes the distinction between loneliness as a state which can exist with or without other people around; isolation, which is an unwanted and unhealthy aloneness; and solitude, which is aloneness by choice.  

One of the many dangers of loneliness is that a lonely person is more likely to diminish their own standards and engage in negative social interaction. In this comedy, that is Maya’s mistake. But through her mistake she gains a shift in awareness and learns that it is within her own power to ameliorate at least some of her own loneliness. She comes to understand that self-rejection leaves one needing outside validation, and in absence of this validation, one feels lonely. She concludes that self-love and self-acceptance can be healing for loneliness and that isolation does not mean one must be lonely.