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Stain

After uncovering a strange stain on his bedsheets, Miles struggles to return to his routine.

  • Eli Speigel
    Director
  • Eli Speigel
    Writer
  • Matt Horvat
    Producer
  • Joshua Rosen
    Producer
  • Miles Verweel
    Key Cast
  • Faraz Niafattah
    Key Cast
  • Carley Thorne
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Comedy
  • Runtime:
    14 minutes 7 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 6, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    6,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital, Alexa Classic
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Eli Speigel

Eli Speigel is a freelance director and editor born and raised in Toronto.

His work spans from comedy shorts to sizzles for global toy companies, documentaries to music videos, talk-shows to advertisements and so on.

Eli studied theatre and philosophy at the University of Guelph, but after Judith Thompson told him that no one would be interested in the kind of theatre he wanted to make, he soon pursued film!

In 2015-2017, Eli ran around with a camera and some friends and made some short films that he's a little embarrassed of now but it lead to him creating the talkshow, Liver Than Live, which NOW magazine said "thrives on spontaneity by putting live performances at the forefront" and that's... not a negative description! In 2018/2019, Eli directed and edited the web series, Blood, which premiered at the New York City Web Fest.

In the years since, his short films, Stain, Tarana Ding Dong, Mayonnaise, and The Jokes have participated in festivals as prestigious as Cannes' Short Film Corner, and as local as The Pilot in Yorkville. After puttering around the film festival circuit, Stain can be seen on Beyond The Short, Film Shortage, Kino Short of the Week, Shorted, and FlickFair; Mayonnaise can be seen on Klipist, Retrospective of Jupiter, Kino Short of the Week, Film Shortage, and Shorted; The Jokes can bee seen on Beyond the Short, and soon Film Shortage and Kino Short of the Week.

In 2023, a feature-length cinéma-vérité film he DoP'd called, Plains premiered at the Revue Cinema in Toronto and has since played in Halifax, Liepzig, and London (UK). It is now available via Tubi and Stash.

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Director Statement

Stain was written as a group of scenes that I could afford to shoot on location. The pieces came together in the summer of 2019 as I was able to assemble a great crew as well as actors I respected as comedians and improv comics. The scenes in Stain are based on exaggerated real-life experiences. The inciting incident comes from experiencing a physical ailment which cannot immediately be explained, and the subsequent stream of causes and self-diagnoses you think-up on a scale of plausible to completely insane. The backdrop/setting of the short is supposed to be similar to that of my own life... exaggerated of course, but meant to express that strangers, friends, and everyone in between can be uncaring, mean, and... strange. Stain sort of reflects life but was conceived as a means to make fun of life, my own life.