Pity

In eight vignettes, strangers' lives intersect in unexpected ways, revealing that neither empathy nor retribution is adequate in the face of the human capacity to suffer and inflict suffering.
Malta Film Festival 2019: Official Selection; German United Film Festival 2018 (Berlin): Semi-Finalist

  • Martina Reese
    Director
  • Martina Reese
    Writer
  • Martina Reese
    Producer
  • Jules Billups
    Key Cast
  • David Ioder
    Key Cast
  • Mariyah Keith
    Key Cast
  • Linda Moore
    Key Cast
  • Belinda Reyes
    Key Cast
  • Mallory Meadows
    Key Cast
  • Douglas Cater
    Key Cast
  • Martina Reese
    Cinematographer
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    19 minutes 49 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 30, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Martina Reese

Martina Reese arrived at filmmaking later than many. After an extended career as a graphic designer, she was delighted to discover at 50 that filmmaking was a different kind of enterprise than it had been in her undergraduate days: now, once could make films without heavy equipment, expensive film stock and lab processing, and a large crew. And so, the one-time soccer- and lacrosse-mom turned guerrilla filmmaker. Since her 2010 debut shorts "Vicky Gets Dressed" and "One Boy" (starring her children and their friends), Ms. Reese has steadily expanded her body of work and mastery of the medium with sleeper hit shorts such as "The Swimmer" (2012); "Bathroom" (2016), "Move," "Pity," and "Trigger Point" (2017); and "Big Break," "Slow Me Down," and "Twins" (2018). Two new additions to the Reese catalog, "Floating Man" and "The Librarians," were released in early 2019.

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Director Statement

I discovered filmmaking the digital age, around 2010, which made it possible for me to learn by small-scale experimentation. In the years since, I have been exploring many aspects of the craft without being stopped by the financial or structural barriers that would likely have been insurmountable for me during the pre-digital film era.

Trained as a graphic designer but only partly fulfilled by my years of employment as a designer, film creation has been a breakthrough for me. It woke me up from a feeling of going through the motions. I love filmmaking because it is hard but not impossible. I love filmmaking because so much is out of my control, yet planning and organization are indispensable. I love filmmaking because it involves so much disappointment, yet there seems to always be a way to channel failure into growth. I love filmmaking because it is synthetic. I have never been comfortable in a narrow discipline and film brings everything together. Everything.

I love that filmmaking is both technical and aesthetic, visual and aural, literal and metaphorical, collaborative and solitary, organizational and intuitive. Filmmaking changes the way I inhabit the world; I find myself paying more attention to places, faces, witnessed phenomena, chance encounters, light, sound, music, literature. And, of course, filmmaking changes the way I watch film. To me, at best, films are groping and imperfect attempts to express something elusive and ambiguous. I am drawn to films that find beauty in the ordinary, the un-beautiful.

If film stories are a study of the interplay between the isolated and the socially interconnected self, the act of filmmaking depends on the same interplay. For me, the germ of an idea becomes conscious, then changes as it becomes external, affected by interaction with others in ways that are as unpredictable as the weather. I love the solitary periods of research, writing, and editing. I love the collaboration that happens during filming, particularly since my unpaid and underpaid nonprofessional collaborators bring surprising willingness, generosity, and curiosity.