Private Project

Firelight

A group of friends ten years out of college gather for a reunion weekend. When one proposes to another, they all wrestle with the way their lives have changed, their feelings for each other, and how to face a post-pandemic future that looks very different from what they’d imagined.

  • Nathan Breton
    Director
  • Nathan Breton
    Writer
  • Nathan Breton
    Producer
  • Delacey Skinner
    Producer
  • Samantha Glovin
    Key Cast
    "Elle"
  • Anthony Irrizary
    Key Cast
    "Robin"
  • Mike Mitchell, Jr.
    Key Cast
    "Atlas"
  • Jesse Ruane
    Key Cast
    "Lara"
  • Adrian Akeem Sterling
    Key Cast
    "Ben"
  • Matthew Tarricone
    Key Cast
    "Jack"
  • Yura Makarov
    CInematography
  • Carol Kim
    Production Design
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 25 minutes 7 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 30, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    450,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital (Sony FX 6)
  • Aspect Ratio:
    17:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nathan Breton

Nathan Breton is a director, writer, and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. At an early age, he was known by many in his family of three for his groundbreaking sock puppet film, which took place mostly outside of a hand-held VHS camcorder frame. In 5th grade, he worked his way into procedurals, directing acclaimed actors Teddy and Fluffy, most known for their stoic performances in "Bear Operation: Emergency Room." Today, he gravitates toward stories that entertain through aliveness, challenge audiences with feeling, and investigate universal truths.

Nathan has directed over twenty short films, three webseries, and hundreds of commercial projects. His short film anthology, Countdown (2019), premiered at Slamdance 2020 before receiving distribution on the digital platform, Ficto. Nathan carries a cross-disciplinary skillset, navigating roles as an advertising executive, piano accompanist, indie producer, set builder, editor, post-supervisor…all of which feed a passion for finding efficiencies and sustainability within creative work.

Nathan has studied the Technique with Joan Scheckel since 2018. In February 2023, he wrote and directed his first feature film, Firelight.

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Director Statement

Firelight is a film about feeling lost and looking for connection. These characters and relationships are reflections of challenges I’ve felt in relationships, living through the pandemic, and navigating my early 30s. How it feels to wake up in a winter cabin with your closest friends…and know that when you leave, you’ll be going back to a life that feels incredibly lonely and unclear.

Over the past 10 years, I perfected my own approach to making films at a low budget level, carefully planning and controlling every aspect of the process. Despite the success these films found, I felt nothing during the screenings. It was as if they were made to prove something, and in service of that, never said anything I wanted to say. The only time they felt alive was when the plan went off the rails and the outcome was the result of me guiding something that I couldn’t control.

Firelight was made through systematically dismantling absolute control, relying instead on an extensive development process—a deep dive into the meaning and structure of the story, through embodied work—to get to the essential actions and feelings that had to show up on screen to tell the story.

I took the same approach with the cast and key creatives. We scheduled two full weeks of rehearsal, where instead of drilling lines, we focused on essence, relationships, character, world, structure and beats, so that the actors could have the freedom to make the story their own. Our cinematographer, Yura Makarov, was an integral part of these rehearsals, embodying the actions and feelings along with the actors, to bring life into the camera. On set, our schedule left sometimes as little as an hour to shoot 7 page scenes in challenging conditions, which I approached without a shot list but rather with a knowledge of what the scene needed to do for the story.

I am proud to present to you the outcome of this ongoing journey, a film that captures the joy, heartbreak, and truth of feeling lost and looking for connection.