LACERATE
Gloria, an aspiring painter, drives on an empty tank. Under her skin something bothers her. Hands steadfast at the wheel, refusing to fill up, she tempts fate. Colliding with unspoken grievances she must reframe herself amongst missing paintings in her mother’s home.
Director: James Menelaus Rush
United Kingdom/Australia, 2023
19:59 min | trailer
James Menelaus Rush (1995) is an Australian / British filmmaker based between Melbourne and London.
Having previously facilitated workshops in secondary schools exploring notions of self, vulnerability and empathy, he became drawn to film for its ability to absorb audiences into the worlds of softly spoken minds.
His previous student short film ‚Tadpoles‘ was nominated for the 2022 Australian Director’s Guild Awards after screening at various Oscar and BAFTA qualifying festivals around the world such as Winterthur Kurzfilmtage, Flickerfest International Short Film Festival and Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival.
In 2022 James was accepted to take part in the Locarno Film Festival’s ‘Base Camp’ program. Last year he was amongst a handful of filmmakers invited to join Apichatpong Weerasethakul in PlayLab’s Director’s Workshop taking place in Mexico.
For his thesis film ‘lacerate’ James graduated with distinction honours from the London Film School in 2023.
EMOTIONAL OUTBURST
Movies
A KIND OF TESTAMENT
A young woman comes across animations on the Internet that have clearly been created from her private selfies. An unknown female with the same name confesses to identity theft. But death is quicker than the answer to the question: “Why?”...
LACERATE
Gloria, an aspiring painter, drives on an empty tank. Under her skin something bothers her. Hands steadfast at the wheel, refusing to fill up, she tempts fate. Colliding with unspoken grievances she must reframe herself amongst missing paintings in her mother's home....
DEMON BOX
After festival rejections, a director revises his intensely personal short film about trauma, suicide, and the Holocaust, and transforms it into a painful, blunt and funny dissection of the film and his life. Ten years in the making....
JINA
The story of 6 Iranian women told after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini which ignited the revolution in Iran....
AUTOPSÍA
Concealed behind the lens of his camera, a man captures day after day images of his female neighbor. One night, the young woman catches his gaze upon her…...
CROWDFUNDING
Maya tries to record a crowdfunding video for her bakery while having a nervous breakdown....