NEW YORK PREMIERE
SYNOPSIS
A legendary acting teacher (Eric Roberts) relentless pursuit of perfection pushes an overly eager student (Conlan Kisilewicz) into the dark depths of his own psyche. As the student becomes engulfed in a masochistic and obsessive acting 'method', the lines between reality and performance blur. Soon, the series of events takes a criminal turn, leaving the audience questioning... Where does the act end and reality begin?
STARRING: Eric Roberts, Conlan Kisilewicz, Maia Scallia, Niall Cunningham, Ruaridh Mollica, Zachary Zamsky
RUNTIME: 23 minutes
DIRECTOR: Rick Rocha
SCREENPLAY: Rick Rocha
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Matt P Jones
EDITOR: Evan Dominguez, Matt Jones, Rick Rocha
PRODUCERS: Briana Bursten, Rebekah Sherman-Myntti, Micheál Neeson
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Rick Rocha is a Brazilian director, writer, choreographer and actor based in New York City. He is an alumnus of both Laguardia High School’s Drama Department and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre’s acting program. Following graduation, Rocha quickly got into filmmaking and debuted his first project, Solipsism, at The Anthology Film Archives in 2019. Soon after, he directed the pilot for Parallax, an experimental comedy series. Rocha has since directed numerous other short films including Brief Story, The Snag Trilogy, Eldorado. Rocha also spearheaded a special Adidas promotion called Fire Finder starring Julia Fox and Lucien Smith, and co-wrote the play TEETH which debuted at the Zephyr theater in 2023, which he directed. He has done several other artistic commercial collaborations with varying brands.
He has also appeared as an actor in plays such as India Kotis’ THE TANGIBLES (2017), BITCHES (2019) and Dempsey Bryk’s FAIL TO PREPARE (2021). He recently appeared and wrote STALLIONS (2023), a comedy where he shared the stage with Conlan Kisilewicz at the Slipper Room in New York. Rocha recently appeared in Crystal Moselle’s THE BLACK SEA (2024).