Electric - a 23 minute short film
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Director: Oliver Miller
Cinematographer: Matt Toll Producer: Oliver Miller Editor: Timothy O'Connor Screenplay: Melissa Lee Speyer and Oliver Miller Based on an original radio play by: Francis Webb Music and Sound Design: Oliver Miller Production Design: Oliver Miller Key Cast: Cerletti: Nicholas Hope Patient: Socratis Otto 1st Doctor: Barry Langrishe 2nd Doctor: Jeremy Waters Knight and Straitjacketed man: Richard Cox Nurse Joanna: Melissa Farrow Horn Player: Gwyneth Miller |
Logline: It’s 1938 and Italian neuroscientist Dr. Ugo Cerletti will invent Electro Convulsive Therapy, performing a world first live human experiment. Adapting a unique poetic radio-play, Electric is focused on the profound connection between creativity and the schizophrenic mind, breaking through madness into beauty and self-expression
Synopsis:The film begins with our poet typing the text of his radio-play. The doctors enter directly into his literary imaginings and proceed to assess the readiness of the patient for this radically experimental treatment. The patient then leads us into fragmentation and poetic subtext, establishing the patient as a direct cipher for the poet. In the isolation of his office Cerletti stares into his mirror, and takes a deep look into his own ethical framework: torn by the desire for success, yet he sees the potential for failure and the world to view him as an unethical monster. As the film moves towards the climax of the experiment we explore the minds of the doctors who are actually projections of the deeply subjective mind of the patient and poet, juggling their own complex identities and delusions. |
