Experiencing Interruptions?

INZAHMNIA

Experimental film professor Brian Zahm haunts the nightmares of a student after he falls asleep while thinking what to do
for his class project. Can the annoying "bark" of hunger from his cats awake him from slumber?

  • Fran Casillas
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    1 minute 54 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 3, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    0 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:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes
Director Biography - Fran Casillas

DePaul University M.F.A Student (2020)

Being from the island of Puerto Rico, the themes that prominently surround us as a population are constantly political. Growing up I craved for a local cinema that offered me more than a reminder of our past and current troubles, something that utilizes our Caribbean flavor and geographical location to express different ideas. We are where we come from, but that shouldn’t define where we are going. I intend to auteur Puerto Rican Cinema that is not defined by itself, that it can be made by and from its same people, but not about them.

I was born to a single mother of 16 years of age, and she raised me by herself till I was ten. Somehow, and not that I feel like this at all, the abandonment of my father seems to have greatly influenced the gravitation of my ideas. Looking at the macro in retrospective, most of my ideas involve a paternal figure, a sense of abandonment, and the need for change and happiness, more conscious of my inner psychosocial networking, my ideas for filmmaking gravitate towards Quantum Theory, Fatalism, and the Absurd. If my audience keeps reflecting about what they saw after they leave the screening, if it awakens a thirst to ponder and converse, then I, as a filmmaker, am satisfied.

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Director Statement

There concur two types of cinema, the one that liberates us, enabling the detachment of our day by day, a simple entertaining refocus of our attention; and the one that sequesters and appropriates our most profound and sincere contemplations, thought provoking beginning after end.

The act of human consciousness, once evoked, hardly can it be appeased. Human naturalness is a slave of the subconscious, and once it becomes aware before the lens, it shadows in the desire to sojourn the self, failing the attempt to become another.

There isn’t such a thing as an “act naturally”, that paradox suffocates us, makes us prisoners of the conscious. Cinematic composition must be firstly forged visually, say as much as you can only with an image, then, only if necessary, be complemented with small stammtischs that dilute our consciousness. Concise dialogue lines that makes us forget "This is not real". That verisimilar pretended naturality, that impossibility, is the role of a director.