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The Wedding

  • Amanda E.K.
    Director
    Second Surface, The Supermarket
  • Amanda E.K.
    Writer
    Second Surface, The Supermarket
  • Amanda E.K.
    Producer
    Second Surface, The Supermarket
  • Glass Cactus
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Pandemic, Drama, Comedy
  • Completion Date:
    May 12, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    iPhone 11
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Amanda E.K.

Amanda is a queer writer, filmmaker and creative coach, and the former editor-in-chief of Denver, Colorado’s Suspect Press—an art & literature magazine and indie book publisher. She writes about sex and relationships for Playlove and OFM, and she’s pitching a memoir about growing up in fundamentalist purity culture & the impact of religious trauma. Her production team—Glass Cactus—has won awards for their first TV pilot and their first short film, Second Surface, which is available on Youtube and Vimeo. Amanda’s work has been featured multiple times on the Low Orbit podcast and on Mortified Live. She’s spoken at Lighthouse Writers Workshop as a queer creative, and she’s been published in Jersey Devil Press, Monologging, Green Briar Review, South Broadway Ghost Society, Suspect Press, and others.

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Director Statement

I made this film, The Wedding, as part of a pandemic film series idea I had after digging up my childhood Polly Pocket toys during a visit to my parents’ house in Fall 2020. The Pollyville church stood out to me as a way to show how people in this pandemic era have had to get creative to maintain tradition and celebration.

With this project, I’ve blended childhood nostalgia with real world issues, flattening the dynamic Polly Pocket colors to black & white in order to mimic the flattening of our vibrant pre-pandemic lives. Since I needed to find a way to convey dialogue, I decided to tell the stories with intertitles in silent film style - an era of film that I adore, especially Buster Keaton films.

As a former evangelical Christian who got married young and waited for my wedding night to have sex, I chose to focus on the bride for this film—Lauren, an Evangelical virgin who’s preoccupied with wedding-night anxieties and the uncanny stares of the virtual officiant. A commitment to a partner shouldn’t have to include a fear of sex.

The original score by Jack Oberkirsch is inspired by the big band era, as well as wedding music from the 1960s to portray an ironic energy alongside the anxieties of this uncommon wedding.

This series is my first solo film project, and I'm grateful to have had the time to teach myself the software and other elements that went into this. This project has helped keep me sane, focused, and purposeful during The Unknown, and it’s been a way to help me process, in real time, the collective trauma shared throughout the globe.