Saturday, March 3
2 PM
Shorts 1 Program
US NAVY HERITAGE CENTER
$10 IN ADVANCE HERE OR AT THE DOOR
Bench Seat, a classic love story with a musical twist, is a brief moment in the lives of a young couple on the verge of either moving forward or breaking up. While the girl envisions a bright and happy future with her boyfriend, he can only think of all the things he’s missing out on by being trapped in their relationship. He reconsiders once she tells the story of the last boy who dared to dump her.
Anna Mastro began her directing career with award winning music videos and a web series chronicling the launch of Girlicious. Since then, she’s directed music videos for Train, Alex Band, Carbon Leaf, Stellastarr*, The Exies, The Dan Band, Matt Goss, and The Pussycat Dolls. Mastro is also an acclaimed photographer, featured in Game Informer, TIME and National Geographic Adventure. In 2009 her Short film “Matter”, starring Amanda Righetti, won Awards for Best Short Film and Best Actress at the New York Independent International Film and Video Festival.
As writer Neil LaBute was originally a playwright he has made his films like his plays: showing just characters talking and revealing how evil, scared, ignorant, wounded, delusional, disillusioned and cynical they are. LaBute made his first major mark with the cautionary fable In the Company of Men, about two sexist male office co-workers fed up with what they believe is the way women have taken over American society and how it is no longer a man’s world. This was followed by Your Friends & Neighbors and then Nurse Betty (LaBute’s next directorial effort, from a script he didn’t write himself). In 2002 LaBute got himself noticed again with Possession, based on the best-selling novel, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. In 2003 LaBute brought to the screen The Shape of Things, another adaptation of a play he wrote, working with his original cast (Paul Rudd, Rachel Weisz, Gretchen Mol and Frederick Weller).
