This past Friday, LA Film Resources hosted a wine mixer and private premiere screening for their new short film “Breathe,” at the Banner Bank Courtyard in Pasadena.
Directed by Michael Liu and written by Shanna Forrestall (who also plays the lead character), the film “Breathe” is about a mother and father who lose a child and how they travel all over the City of Lake Arrowhead trying to find the right spot to lay their son’s ashes.
The film teaches you about how to deal with grief and loss. Even though there is no dialogue, the film is able to touch all emotions with the use of a powerful score.
The film also features Escalante Lundy as the husband/father and a special appearance by Jennifer Awad of Kardia Gallery (whose work also appears in the film). The original score for the film was composed by Carlos Garza.
Forrestall, writer and main character of the film, says that she got the storyline and concept from a personal tragedy that happened to her in 2014. Having her actors work for free, they endured many difficulties filming at the location, but the overall project turned out to be great.
Forrestall wants her film to encourage connection and communication – to anyone who may be feeling “in the dark,” she says, “you are not alone, and to not give up hope, there is so much love around you, don’t feel isolated.”
I had a chance to sit down with a couple of the actors and get their take on how it felt shooting a powerful, but yet different, short film like “Breathe.”
Actor Escalante Lundy states that the hardest part about making a short film with no dialogue “was the difficulty of making your scenes really believable. In acting we use the saying, ‘you can always tell when you have good actors if you turn the sound off of what you’re watching and you’re still able to tell what’s going on’ – and that’s what we wanted to create with this film.”
Composer Garza used several different instruments to create emotion in the film. Having composed for over 16 years, Garza is not new to films without dialogue. He used several different virtual sounds and recorded his own instruments, particularly the piano and electric guitar, to make the film come to life. In the film you can also hears sounds of harps, flutes, synthesizers, and bass flutes.
One member of the audience, Caroline McGraw, shared that she felt the film was “very powerful without words, it speaks to your heart. With the acting and music, the final scene is so breathtaking. I would recommend this film to the public because, cinematically, the acting invites you to step into a painting and become one of the characters in the film.”
Forrestall, Neil Wells (the film’s executive producer), and many of the cast and crew are from Louisiana, so in response to the recent tragic flooding in their home state, the premiere hosted a wine tasting, sponsored by ONEHOPE wineries. Elida Tsou, ONEHOPE spokesperson, mentioned that each different bottle of wine sold corresponded to a particular charity and the money raised directly supported those charities and the families who were affected by the disaster.
For more information about how you can help Louisiana flood victims, go to the LA Film Resources’ Facebook page or visit www.lafilmresources.com.
