“IN MEDIAS RUSH” By Esben Persson
Synopsis
IN MEDIAS RUSH is a journey into the depths of a manic mind. A young man celebrates his birthday while thoughts are multiplying. With an unwilling foot on the accelerator he is heading over the edge.
Directors statement
The short film IN MEDIAS RUSH is an experimental cinematic journey into the depths of a manic mind. A poetic retro-sci-fi narrative unfolded in a string of unsettling tableaus that encapsulates the male protagonist’s ambiguous feelings about his birthday.
While balancing between realities in his silent struggle with severe mental illness, we plunge into the film at a neatly orchestrated birthday party. The protagonist is accompanied by his girlfriend, and they are drinking cocoa on the couch in their mutual home. The setting breathes pure perfection, but through the voice over we sense that another reality is soon to be revealed. With one foot on the accelerator, he is heading towards the edge.
The thematic focal point of IN MEDIAS RUSH is mental health problems among young adults, and the social/personal consequences related to the existing taboo on the subject. The film wishes to formulate an honest cinematic space in which words, sound, and image artistically interprets and articulates some of the perspectives related to especially bipolar, anxiety, and psychotic disorders.
From a theoretical point of view IN MEDIAS RUSH is a cinematic experiment which examines how stylistic means communicate. The centre of attention is an investigation of the relationship between voice over, sound design and image - how they are used to stage the viewer's understanding of the film's main character. The main goal is to show how word, sound and image coherently can report on the existing conflict between the main character’s physical and psychological reality. Through continuous dynamic movements the image, sound design and voice over fundamentally aims to show that something is at stake in the life of an isolated main character who does not express his feelings and ideas, fearing they somehow will be incompatible with the outside world.
Credits
Starring: Peter Alexander Bach & Amanda Overby Drew
Director, Script writer, Set designer, Costume designer, Editor, VO: Esben Persson
Photographer, Editor: Lasse Mølsted
Producer: Latifa Lykke & Ben Mabrouk
Assistant Producer: Cecilie Creutsberg
Music Composer: Martin Bejder
Sound Designer: Mads Hye
Chief Lighting Technician: Rasmus Bruun Liboriussen
VFX: Jonas Fonnesbæk Lodahl
Colorist: Kristopher Paterson
Graphic Designer: Jakob Toft Kristensen
“IN MEDIAS RUSH” was submitted to us by Esben Persson. Have a film of your own you’d like us to check out? Click here!