My new short film Sometime Around January [2015] is my most favorite short film we’ve done so far. I wrote it 2 years ago, and it focuses on that moment when you unexpectedly meet an old flame for the first time after a nasty break-up. The film goes through all the thoughts and emotions you might go through in that very moment that you spot your old lover (played by Moises Bournigal). I don’t know if anyone has actually met an old flame after a fall out, unexpectedly, or even paid attention to their thoughts and emotions when they do see him or her, but it is fascinating if you stop and think what you actually think and feel in that moment. People would expect you to be mad after seeing an old flame after a bad fall out, but what’s fascinating is if you actually experience it you might have found you weren’t mad cause you weren’t prepared. See if you know you’ll meet them, inside your head you’re like “Okay what will I say and how should I act?” and you’ll be angry cause you’re thinking about everything that he or she did to you, up to the point you meet them. But when you’re just going out to listen to music, as the lead woman in Sometime Around January does (played by Dominique LaFleur), you’re your natural self: calm, content, and just enjoying music. So to me it’s interesting to think about how we act as humans when put in a situation we don’t see coming or didn’t prepare for.

(DP Paul Bulgin. Photo by Eileen Slavin)

You see him and first you’re shocked, and all the memories come rushing through your mind of all the great times. Then you’re like, kinda amused cause the guy is sitting up front and you remember how he loved attention, and you remember all these little aspects of his personality and you kinda laugh about it to yourself. You obviously see he is sitting with a woman (played by JD Achille), and mind you, they’re up front enjoying the musician so they can’t see you, but somehow it doesn’t upset you that he’s with someone. Why would it? It’s been a while since the relationship ended, and you have hope that maybe he will see you and maybe he too will remember all the great times and fall back in love with you. So you’re not even mad at first! You’re shocked, then pleasantly shocked, and you’ve accepted that he’s with someone. I love the complexity of emotions….the whole idea of it. We don’t sit and think about how complex we are as humans, but I do cause I’m weird. And I love it. I know that I’m an emotional person and I’ve been in love a couple times, and been hurt too, so I’m very familiar with this sort of thing, and I love sharing these experiences and feelings and emotions in my writing and in turn, making beautiful films out of them; maybe touching people along the way.

People have come up to me after watching the full short and told me the film was beautifully directed and edited, and that the acting was powerful. They shared how great the cinematography was done (by Paul Bulgin), and how beautiful the music was (composed by Steven Lanning-Cafaro). One film Director told me she loved the element of mystery throughout. She said she thought it was also compelling. YESSSSS. That is exactly what I wanted! Beauty, and mystery. Those words directly describe what I wanted out of this film. Because love is beautiful, and love is mysterious and compelling; powerful, but also painful. Testosterone is a blinding and powerful thing, people.

I loved getting this feedback. Was exactly what I was going for. Once I post the film I’ll write another blog about why I chose the certain angles and movement and what it all means to me.

What’s next for the film? It got really good feedback so that was pretty awesome as I already said. I feel it was a good year as far as the film goes and am looking forward to 2016. I submitted the film to a bunch more film festivals. In 2015, Sometime Around January played at local film festivals in the Boston area (Art City Cambridge Film Fest, Shoe City Shorts, Home Grown Shorts, Shawna Shea Film Festival etc), so I was driving up there a lot between August and November to screen the film. The film was also nominated for Best Short at the Shawna Shea Film Festival last month, and I’ve never accomplished THAT so it was amazing. I really am excited to see what happens in 2016. Where it goes you know…

For the next film, I have a few scripts I wrote that I wanna do next, but one film I wrote recently that I really wanna do (too lol) deals with the psyche and our emotions in a situation, and how we blow things up in our heads, and how our thoughts differs from reality. Sound familiar? Fascinating stuff.

Before I conclude I wanna say though….when I go to festivals, I do hear filmmakers get up and speak, and a couple have said while speaking generally, that if a film doesn’t make the big festivals and just ends up online, then it isn’t “a success” and that means what you’re doing doesn’t or isn’t working. I disagree with this. Success is a personal and subjective term, and what may work for you or be “successful” to you may not be to another. If you’ve made a film, that’s success. There’s a lot of people out here that talk about making films but don’t actually make them, so who are you to judge if a filmmaker’s film is a success or not or judge if what they’re doing works or not based off of where it ends up? I see some films I don’t like in theaters and in festivals, and some of these even win awards. “Success” is subjective and we shouldn’t judge. As long as the film comes out to the vision you wanted it to be, it was a success. Where it ends up has not a thing to do with success or if what you’re doing works or not. And this is all coming from an accomplished filmmaker. Who loves using vimeo to post work on. So.

I can’t go too far into how Sometime Around January plays out as there are twists in just 5 minutes worth of film, but I hope you will watch the teaser below.

I’m uploading the full short film on my vimeo sometime around January (don’t mind the date in the video). So take a look at the 1 minute teaser of this film below and feel free to Like or leave a comment….or share. That would be awesome.

And come back to my vimeo in January to check out the FULL version of the film:

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/145916799″>Sometime Around January | Teaser</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/raeshelle”>Raeshelle Cooke</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>