This Time Away

THIS TIME AWAY / United Kingdom (Narrative) 

W/D: Magali Barbe

Logline: Nigel is an elderly man living as a recluse, haunted by his past and memory of the family he once had... until an unexpected visitor arrives and disrupts his lonely routine.

Maybe a smile is all we need right now! This story definitely has some familiar tropes, but it is a nice take on loneliness for these weird times. Magali does a great job of using sci-fi to elicit emotional reactions from her characters and also from the viewer. Her previous short, STRANGE BEASTS is a similar take on loneliness and sci-fi/technology. She is currently turning that into a feature. It will be interesting to see if she can lean into the emotional aspects of her work and break out of the “Black Mirror” genre.

—Bennett Levine, Executive Assistant