Oh! A Phantom All My Life
From the Archives
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Short Films, 02-Sep-2025
A strange advertisement sends a young woman on a journey of memory loss and vampirism. “Oh! A Phantom All My Life,” directed by Ellena Eshraghi, is a coming-of-age reflection coded in darkness and fantasy. A young woman recounts the story her parents once told her—when she was a young child, she had an evil, identical twin sister who was left behind at an amusement park. However, it became recently known to Ellena that her parents, in fact, left the wrong twin. Spending most of her days as an adult in a cluttered room with a box TV, a cryptic commercial disrupts the loop, reading: “Tired of living in a deluded hopeless fantasy? Are you ready to get real?" The young woman calls the number on the screen and receives a sleep-inducing VHS tape, and, in an unconscious state, undergoes a transformation whereafter she begins to crave blood. Hoping to clear her brain fog and quench her outbursts, she continues watching the tape where footage jogs missed memories and prompts Ellena to return to the bedroom where it all started. Within the film’s imaginative hybrid form, Eshraghi, who both stars and directs, leans into the personal while filling the frame with stylized production design and costuming. -JM. Director, Writer, Editor: Ellena Eshraghi. Cinematography, Music: Benny Berger. Producers: Ellena Eshraghi, Benny Berger. Cast: Ellena Eshraghi, Benny Berger, Morgan Mcgrory, Shar Eshraghi, Maziar Eshraghi.
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