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The Jokes

After accidentally burning his breakfast, a man goes to a nearby cafe and struggles to read a graphic novel.

  • Eli Speigel
    Director
    Mayonnaise, Tarana Ding Dong, Stain
  • Eli Speigel
    Writer
    Mayonnaise, Tarana Ding Dong, Stain
  • Stephen Thomas
    Writer
    The Jokes (novel)
  • Joshua Rosen
    Producer
    Mayonnaise, Tarana Ding Dong, Stain
  • Daniel Feldman Green
    Producer
    Mayonnaise, Tarana Ding Dong, Stain
  • Conrad Osei
    Key Cast
    "The Preacher"
  • Margaret Rose
    Key Cast
    "How is the Dog"
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Experimental
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes 30 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 20, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • 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

I decided to make The Jokes because it was all I could do with the amount of money I had while I was waiting for funding for a larger project. The crew consisted of me, a sound recordist, and an assistant; and we shot everything on my Sony a7s iii. The film is a loose adaptation of a collection of 4-10 sentence short stories by Stephen Thomas (also called The Jokes). The stories don't have beginnings, middles, or ends; they are moments more than anything else. I singled out the moments that felt like the characters were disassociating, experiencing the intense mental process of disconnecting from oneself, and doing so in mundane locations and trivial environments. Having an intense emotion while in a disconnected public place brings out a certain comedy due to its juxtaposition. Having an existential crisis in a cafe while the stranger beside you is filming a TikTok dance on their phone could cause one to question the significance of the crisis itself. I wanted to explore this scenario visually and sonically and meld several of Thomas’ micro moments into a series of connected vignettes; slivers of life rather than slices of life. In short, I'm attempting to see if there's some comedy in struggling with mental health.
The actors were an assembled group of friends and peers, and their dialogue was a combination of words straight from Thomas’ pages and improv. I enjoyed making this film because I was making it completely on my own volition. I didn’t need to rent any equipment, just a few hours in two locations. The extent of the prep work (after scouting locations) was charging camera batteries, and checking if my friends were available on a given day. Upon finishing The Jokes, I have been encouraged to shoot all my future films in a similarly simplistic and stripped-down manner.