Are They Smiling?
Under 15 Minutes
•
09-Oct-2020
A young woman decides to carry on the family tradition of attending the county fair, this time with her dead parents. Kate Jean Hollowell directs and stars in “Are They Smiling?” a comedy about an unusual grieving process: spending the day alone at a fair carrying the ashes of your dearly departed. We learn who’s in the urn when she approaches a caricature artist, “can you paint me and my parents?” Before that, she’s just wandering around making small talk with strangers, playing games, riding rides, rolling around in a human hamster ball. And having imaginary conversations with her folks — at a monster truck show, she imagines her mother being worried for the driver’s safety (“mom, it’s fine, I’m sure he has health care”), and earlier she assures, “I’ll find someone soon; see, that guy is looking at me.” Indeed she does meet someone soon, a mustached man who’s also alone, also carrying an urn, and they hit it off. Just watching Hollowell move through the fair is engrossing, but there are some real laugh out loud moments as well (i.e. she lines up for a picture with a dinosaur only to remember there’s no one there to snap the photo), and it’s brought home with a charming final dance sequence. Cast: Kate Jean Hollowell, Max Baumgarten.
Up Next in Under 15 Minutes
-
Pacurí
At the cusp of her Quinceañera, Pacurí must decide where her loyalties lie: with her devoted family or her wealthy friends. “Pacurí,” directed by Gustavo René, is a coming-of-age drama about a Paraguayan-American teenager expressing independence while her family fixates on a culturally important ...
-
Babywatch
Through a series of witness depositions, a detective aims to uncover the truth about the death of a young woman at the hands of her church. The enigmatic “Babywatch,” by director Eli Powers, is loosely based on a real story from the early 1990’s involving a woman’s mental breakdown and a locked m...
-
Downbeat
After a difficult break-up, Annie reckons with the imminent departure of another close friend who is moving away from their shared apartment and city. From a script she co-wrote with Hannah Rehak, Nina Slesinger directs “Downbeat,” an intelligent and emotionally astute portrait of friendship and ...
