NEW YORK PREMIERE
SYNOPSIS
After receiving a disturbing email from her son, Julie weaves wildly through traffic in a race against time to find him. Narrowly avoiding collisions, she makes a series of phone-calls in a bid to piece together what is happening. After being put on hold by the police department, invalidated by her ex-husband and gaslit by her son's therapist, Julie hears a news report citing a gunman in a blue Accura has opened fie on the campus of a university. Recognizing her son's car and his university, Julie's horror solidifies as she makes one last attempt to reach him.
STARRING: Bethany Anne Lind, D.W. Moffett, Ben Irving, Evan Hall, Aleah Quinones
RUNTIME: 14 minutes
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
My film is based on a true story; a tragedy that occurred when a family friend’s son committed an atrocious crime. Watching a mother I know go through this forced me to start examining my own reactions, biases and conclusions surrounding these tragedies which ultimately shifted the way I began to understand them. It was that experience that inspired me to write this story highlighting the complexities of being the mother of a child who commits an violent crime. By putting the viewer in the mother’s shoes in real time for 13 minutes, as she races to stop her worst nightmare from becoming a reality, I hope the viewer will begin to question their own reactions. In offering a story told from a perspective that is so often silenced in social dialogue, I aim to broaden the dialogue we have around mental health and gun violence.
DIRECTOR: Maia Scalia
SCREENPLAY: Maia Scalia
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Matt Clegg
EDITOR: Pietro Scalia
MUSIC: Eli Keszler
PRODUCER: Ani Schroeter
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Eileen Kelly, Pietro Scalia
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Maia Scalia (Director/Writer) is a filmmaker based in New York City. She received her B.F.A. in Drama from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Upon graduating, she made her debut as the lead in an Off- Broadway play and since then she can be found in supporting roles in Sony Marvel movie MORBIUS (2022), CALL JANE (2022) starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver as well as THREE WOMEN (2024) coming to Starz in September. In 2020 she wrote three episodes for Sam Rami's Quibi series FIFTY STATES OF FRIGHT titled "Knoxville Girl". HIS MOTHER is her directorial debut.