Summer of ‘04

Short Narrative / Coming-of-Age Drama / 17 min

When her mother leaves for New York, 18-year-old Sundance is left alone in their modest townhouse in a hood just north of Duncanwoods — a block where cracked pavement, firecrackers, and floral couches set the rhythm of summer. What starts as a season of reckless freedom — house parties, BMX bikes, loud music, cheap weed — slowly unravels into something much darker. After a surreal night, two of her closest friends disappear with a strange older woman promising more drugs. With nothing but gut instinct and her best friend Keys by her side, Sundance tracks them to a quiet suburban house framed by screaming red flowers.

What she finds in that basement — and what follows — fractures her understanding of safety, memory, and girlhood.

Told through glitchy camcorder confessionals, poetic voiceover, and fractured flashbacks, Summer of '04 is a lyrical, emotionally charged exploration of coming-of-age in the shadow of generational silence, female rage, and a past that won’t stay buried.

It’s a film about survival, yes. But also about the haunted places that raised us — and the voice it takes to finally name them.

  • Sundance Nagrial
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay, Short Script
  • Genres:
    Poetic Realism, Urban Youth Drama, Surreal Realism, Memoir Fiction, Feminist Survival Narrative, Visual Memoir, Trauma Cinema, Coming-of-Age Drama, Psychological Drama
  • Number of Pages:
    11
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Writer Biography - Sundance Nagrial

Sundance Nagrial is a multidisciplinary writer, actor, and filmmaker based in Ontario, Canada. Her work lives at the intersection of memory, girlhood, and survival — often told through a blend of poetic realism, stylized visual language, and raw emotional truth.

Her latest short film, Summer of '04, is a semi-autobiographical fever dream about a suburban summer that spirals into something far more dangerous and unforgettable. Told through camcorder confessions, fractured memories, and surreal bursts of trauma and tenderness, the film reflects Sundance’s signature voice: lyrical, haunting, and fiercely intimate.

Sundance is the founder of 1985 Company, a creative umbrella for her narrative work across film, theatre, and multimedia storytelling. She is passionate about exploring identity, intergenerational wounds, and moments of quiet resilience — especially through South Asian Canadian perspectives. With a background in acting, journalism, and wellness advocacy, her work is deeply rooted in personal history and collective reckoning.

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Writer Statement

Summer of ’04 isn’t just a short film — it’s an excavation.

This story began as a whisper inside me, a memory I had almost convinced myself wasn’t real. I wrote this script as a form of self-repair. As a way of making sense of a summer that still echoes in my bones — a summer filled with freedom, recklessness, and a single decision that changed everything. It’s about what happens when you’re young and no one’s watching. It’s about the people you lose, the versions of yourself you bury, and the girls you never stop running alongside in your mind.

I didn’t want to tell a story about trauma. I wanted to tell a story about what lives after it.

Through camcorder confessions, dreamlike visuals, and quiet acts of resistance, this film gives voice to moments that were once unspeakable. It’s stylized, yes — but rooted deeply in truth. In thread. In glass. In red flowers and broken windows.

This is for anyone who has ever made it out of a place that tried to swallow them whole — and then turned back around to name it.