Experiencing Interruptions?

High

High is a brazen exploration of the love shared between two wildly different characters - a nomadic snowboard bum and a nervous young mom. What are the consequences of the choices we make surrounding relationships? Deconstructing false ideas of wholeness, the film challenges us to examine what is blocking our own fulfillment.

  • Eva MeiLing Pollitt
    Director
    Tenny
  • Eva MeiLing Pollitt
    Writer
    Tenny
  • Eva MeiLing Pollitt
    Producer
  • Hannah Leilani Jordan
    Producer
  • Madeline Barr
    Key Cast
    "Meg "
  • Leah Watson
    Key Cast
    "Sam"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Romance, Drama
  • Runtime:
    17 minutes 20 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 30, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    7,500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Colorado International Film Festival
    Online
    August 16, 2019
    Colorado Film Award - Gold
Director Biography - Eva MeiLing Pollitt

Eva MeiLing Pollitt is a writer/director from Colorado who has worked and studied in France, China, Russia, NYC, and Texas. She has written, directed, and produced three shorts; Tenny, High, and T'es Belle. She has a BFA in theatre and a BA in World Languages from Southern Methodist University and completed the certificate filmmaking program at ESRA in Paris in 2022. She is currently based in LA.

https://www.eva-mei.com

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

HOMETOWN

Tabernash, Colorado.

Population: 417.

Heart of the Rockies. World-class skiing, hiking, biking, and climbing.

Many who live here moved from elsewhere because of an obsession with the mountains.

I grew up here.

My mom escaped to Breckenridge at nineteen and started working as a ski lift attendant. She met my Dad there twenty years later, and they moved to Tabernash so my Dad could work at the nearby Winter Park Resort; where I went to preschool, learned to ski, and had my first job bussing tables at fourteen.

Even after we'd moved to Denver, and even as I went away to school in Texas - went to work in France, and now New York - I've returned to these mountains every winter, every summer. I've grown up working seasonal resort jobs alongside young people who, like my mom, have big spirits and a passion for outdoor adventure that can't be restrained to loud cities and claustrophobic cubicles.

In my emptiest of moments, I return to these mountains, and they provide a seemingly eternal generosity. This film is a love letter to the nature that endures in the face of our weak humanity. The mountains act as a constant sanctuary for the film's rattled characters as their perceptions of themselves and their relationships are uprooted and thrashed about. When everything else is violently unsure, the mountains stand as beacons of serenity.

LOVE AND PARTNERSHIP
Growing up, Disney told me stories of a man and a woman meeting, falling in love happily, getting married, and staying together forever in bliss.

In reality, watching the adults in my life, I did see some people come together, young and fresh-faced, head over heels, ready to commit. They did not always live in bliss. I also saw divorce, cheating, and marriages crumbling after years of loveless boredom. There also were - and still are - adult women and men in my life who never partnered off at all, and are dealing with the outcomes of it, good and bad.

This film is born to address the fact that, so often, a healthy partnership doesn't happen or last.

How do we endure the hard parts of belonging primarily to ourselves?

How are we blocking our own fulfillment?

Does true love ever die? How do we reconcile with change?