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The Lonely Road


THE LONELY ROAD is the story of a young deaf girl who takes a road trip with a stranger in order to reconnect with the past and find hope for the future.

  • Janelle Karen Watson-Evans
    Writer
  • Janelle Karen Watson-Evans
    Director
  • Janelle Karen Watson-Evans
    Producer
  • Della Rosa Evans
    Key Cast
    "The Girl"
    The Greens
  • Caio Czismar
    Directors of Photography
  • Dylan Nicholls
    Directors of Photography
  • Janelle Karen Watson-Evans
    Production Designer
  • Dylan Nicholls
    Editors
  • Vicki Hetherington
    Editors
  • Dylan Nicholls
    Original Music
  • Nico Kosa
    Sound Design
  • Completion Date:
    December 31, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    800 AUD
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital / IPhone
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Janelle Karen Watson-Evans

Janelle works and lives in Australia's iconic tourist destination of the Gold Coast. Working across a range of creative disciplines including set decoration, production design, interior design, fashion, art and styling, she has a passion for storytelling in its many forms. With experience working on indie web series, commercials and content creation, she is currently the creator and co-host of a weekly visual podcast entitled 'Fabulous Nobody Podcast' which she films, writes, edits and produces at her home on the Gold Coast. The podcast which is uploaded weekly to social media, features hot topics, film and television reviews and special guests.
Janelle's goal is to continue to make female driven content and films on topics that resonate with her and dreams of one day seeing her screenplay - 'Paradise High' come to fruition as a film or tv series. This semi-autobiographical story celebrates the history of Surfers Paradise, growing up with a single mother and a bevy of gay father figures against a backdrop of interior decorating, floods and disco, during the 1970's.
Her short film 'The Lonely Road' is her first film.

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Director Statement

THE LONELY ROAD is inspired by American artist Cindy Sherman’s ‘Untitled Film Still’ 1979 which depicts a young girl waiting alone on a deserted country road at dusk.

The motivation for making this film was to explore the idea of what it would be like for a young girl with a hearing loss to find herself alone without an ability to hear and without the people she loves to guide her.

Inspired by my daughter's experience of severe deafness and her sole reliance on the use of high powered digital hearing aids to listen and speak, I wondered what it would be like to NOT have access to modern digital hearing aids and be thrust into a world of silence.

I was also very interested in making a film about deafness which did NOT include sign language as part of the deaf narrative. By way of example, my daughter Della Rosa Evans who plays the part of The Girl, does not know or use sign language as a form of communication.

In telling this story, I wanted to explore the themes of loss, memory, mother/daughter bond, intergenerational female connection, alienation and vulnerability.

The use of minimal dialogue and the 'Show Don't Tell' philosophy of cinematic storytelling perfectly conveys The Girl’s loneliness and uncertainty.
Additionally the road trip with a stranger reinforces The Girl's vulnerability and the final destination of Surfers Paradise as a sort of ‘Emerald City', is a metaphor for hope and new beginnings.

THE LONELY ROAD is dedicated to my daughter Della on whom this story is based, and to the deaf children of previous generations who could not be part of the hearing world.