Drama,
10:07 minutes,
English,
BC,
2008
Synopsis
A story about a young man visiting his childhood friend in the forest where he lives.
Damian has grown up but Ende remains, although grown, emotionally a child. The two negotiate the changing seasons and the memory of the tragic event that brought them there.
This story is about friendship and loss; about growing up and moving on.
Creative team
Writer/director/producer: Benjamin Schuetze
Personal statement
Director Benjamin Schuetze says:
"This piece represents the culmination of three separate attempts making this film. Each effort had a different approach; this final version being the shortest on exposition and the broadest in meaning.
The culminating incident in the film, for instance, has the potential to be viewed in many different ways. For me the decision of having Ende’s character portrayed as child when and how he commits the deed acts more as a metaphor and a critique of the way in which a person may understand death as a way out then a real recording of the event.
In fact the memory itself; the string, the forest, and Ende’s decision, may represent Damian’s way of rewriting the actual story to come to grips and live with the loss of his friend.
It was important for me that the film focused more on the relationship of a person to memory or the idea of someone than a defined and concrete sequence of delineated events. The changing of the seasons, the circular repeating nature of Damian’s visits and the memory of the tragedy act more as interchangeable puzzle pieces to create a picture of an internal emotional state than a history of events."