Experiencing Interruptions?

Night In

During a quiet night in, a young woman knows she's not so alone.

  • Christina Raia
    Director
    Summit
  • Christina Raia
    Writer
    Summit
  • Christina Raia
    Producer
    Summit
  • Dani Thomas
    Key Cast
  • Jeanette Sears
    Director of Photography
  • Alexandra Kalinowski
    Composer
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Horror, Horror-Comedy
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2017
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Canon C100
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • 2019 Blackbird Film Festival
    Cortlandt, NY
    April 27, 2019
  • 2017 Horrible Imaginings Film Festival
    San Diego, CA
  • 2017 Nightmares Film Festival
    Columbus, Ohio
  • 2017 Ax Wound Film Festival
    Brattleboro, VT
  • 2017 Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival
    Apex, NC
    Finalist Best Short
  • 2017 Chain NYC Film Festival
    Brooklyn, NY
  • Slaughter Movie House (October 2017 Screening)
    Kansas City, MO
Director Biography - Christina Raia

Christina Raia is a New York City based Writer/Director and the Founder of CongestedCat Productions. She focuses on character-driven narrative projects that explore social issues through horror and humor. Her work, consisting of over a dozen short films, a web series, and two feature films, has screened at film festivals around the world and gained a large online following through multiple crowdfunding campaigns and coverage on press outlets such as Indiewire and BuzzFeed. Through a desire to support other filmmakers, she works for Seed&Spark as the Head of Education, teaching and empowering creators to build their audience and crowdfund their work. She also runs IndieWorks, a monthly screening and community-building series showcasing short films by other New York filmmakers. At the 2019 Queens World Film Festival, she won the Lois Weber Pioneer Award for her leadership in film.

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Director Statement

This film originally came about because I wanted to shoot one final (fourth) short in my apartment (at the time) before moving. I challenged myself to come up with something that could be shot in one night, on no more than $100, with a skilled skeleton crew and without dialogue; but still be something that's fun & compelling, and worth everyone's time & talent. From there, "Night In" was born.

SPOILERS:
I'm a huge horror fan and often enjoy subverting genre tropes, especially in terms of gender. I mainly set out to play with audience expectations and conditioning with this piece. I feel it could equally be examined for commentary or just enjoyed as a small kernel of fun. (Pun intended.)

If I get very specific about this piece, though, I'd have to say the real inspiration for what I ended up making out of that decision to just make something is rooted in the fact that in August 2016, when this was shot, Donald Trump was polluting the airwaves. Blatant misogyny (along with racism, xenophobia, homophobia, toxic masculinity and a general entitlement-fueled bigotry) was not only being tolerated but accepted and excused at an alarming rate. I found myself feeling anxious and angry and wanting to take some sort of action that felt like I was slashing the patriarchy -- so I made this film. Considering where we are now, it feels even more cathartic being able to share it with an audience.