Playground

Matthew wrote Playground after growing up in a forested cluster of two-story condominiums. Within these white walls, families hid infidelity, substance abuse, and emotional detachment. Outside these condos, residents "kept up appearances" despite turbulent inner lives. When Matthew’s father passed away unexpectedly this year, he found it difficult to express his true feelings, sheltering his thoughts.

Adam was forced to reassess life at the age of seventeen when dad told him that mom would be getting her own place. Adam’s anxieties developed during quieter breakfasts with one parent at a time. Silent tensions gained a mask of their own, as his mom and dad left their troubles unaddressed. As a result, Adam gravitated toward movies and stories that dealt with relatable issues such as Kramer vs. Kramer and E.T.

Our personal fractures motivated us to tell a story about a young mother, Steph, who wears a mask of perfection to repress her own problems. When Steph accidentally kills her soon-to-be ex-husband, she tries to cover it up like everything else in her life. Despite her best attempt to maintain normalcy, Steph must inevitably confront her new, brutal reality.

Co-directing elevated the story with our nuanced perspectives. We each directed different actors within the same scene. We collaborated with two cinematographers to achieve distinct visuals in apartment interiors and playground exteriors. Playgrounds were a central part of our childhoods. Slides and sandboxes represented an innocence with few repercussions.

Playground allowed us to explore that, for adults like Steph and ourselves, we can’t return to our idyllic, nostalgic pasts. Steph’s tragedy manifests how we must accept adult responsibilities. Playground shows community and family dynamics suddenly falling apart under stress and impulses. Playground’s ending suggests that it might be better to have those difficult conversations rather than continually run away from them.