Private Project

The Interlude

In this Nordic gothic, an apocalyptic woodsman stalks a woman he believes is an angel who has the names of God's chosen sealed in her forehead.

  • Ruth Reitan
    Director
    Three Muses
  • Ruth Reitan
    Writer
    Hard Corn, Gingerbread House, Three Muses
  • Ruth Reitan
    Producer
    Hard Corn, Gingerbread House, Three Muses
  • Ruth Reitan
    Key Cast
  • Mark Reitan
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    horror, film noir, gothic, thriller, drama, religious, fantasy
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 19 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 29, 2016
  • Production Budget:
    1,900 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:
    Yes
  • Key West Film Festival
    Key West
    United States
    November 19, 2016
    Florida
    Winner - Best Narrative Film, in the Brett Rattner Florida Film Student Showcase
Director Biography - Ruth Reitan

Ruth Reitan is a Graduate Fellow in the Cinema & Interactive Media Dept. at the University of Miami. THE INTERLUDE, her fourth short film, is her thesis short in partial completion of her MFA degree in Motion Pictures. She's developing a feature script based on this story, and has written three other feature length dramatic screenplays which have won writing awards. She also has a PhD in International Relations, and prior to becoming a filmmaker, was a scholar-activist and professor of global politics and transnational social movements.

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Director Statement

THE INTERLUDE, my fourth short film, is my most personal, for at least four reasons: one, because it is an artistic working out of my childhood existential fear of whether I was damned to hell (or not), and a rumination on that most dark of magic books, The Book of Revelation.
It is personal, two, because it is the first of my films on which I maintained 'auteurship', in that I wrote, directed, produced, edited and co-starred in it.
Three, I was able to incorporate the austere aesthetic and motifs of my Norwegian heritage, and in so doing, nod to both my physical ancestors and also my 'spiritual' ones in the craft, namely Bergman, Bresson, Tarkovsky, the Coen Bros, Kaurasmaki Bros, Bella Tarr, von Trier & Dogme 95, Makavejev, Marker, and the biographer/ novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard.
It is personal, finally, because I wrote it and shot it in and around my childhood home, with the game assistance of my entire family, including my brother Mark as lead actor, my father Hank in set design, best boy, costuming, and all other behind-the-scenes roles and support, my nephews in drone assistance and B role, and my mom as cook.
My classmate and director of photography, Han Chang, has a keen artist's eye for composition, a sunny disposition, and a workhorse ethic, all of which made our filming under hard outdoor conditions and a tight shooting schedule in northern Minnesota over Christmas break go smoothly.
I will say one last personal thing about this film, and it relates to an opening quote that I used in the title card of my first film, the experimental homage to Soviet montage HARD CORN (2014): There I quoted the Slovenian 'rock star' Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Zizek when he stated 'phantasy gentrifies catastrophe'. I have found this to be true in with work [or is it one phantasy gentrifying another...?]; mercifully, after making THE INTERLUDE, something has shifted, thawed, healed a little, or should I say been "gentrified", in relation to my austere Lutheran heritage; the darkness has somehow dispersed under the glare of the Magic Lantern.