speaking.

My first sketches for “speaking.” date back to 2016. Having worked with comedian Gemma Soldati on a prior project, I was inspired to write something catered to her uniquely physical style of performance. As a trained clown, Gemma’s expressive talents don’t require conventional dialogue to create an emotional and ultimately hilarious bond with an audience. Or really, any dialogue at all.

So this got me thinking: what if I crafted a story where the dialogue was nonsensical? How well could we still convey meaning without meaningful words? What if we turned the clock back 15,000 years to a time before spoken language, but still comically and unfortunately similar in gender relations and social hierarchy? Could we make a funny and engaging story with these restrictions? I now wholeheartedly believe that the answer is ‘yes.’

My producing partners (David Fieman and Precious Ra’Akbar) and I have often discussed the idea that short films don’t have to be small films. This was a driving force for us in creating the prehistoric world of “speaking.” We wanted to fly in the face of the stereotypes so often applied to independent short films, as we truly believe that the scope of a story should never be limited by its genre or its budget. In fact, those limitations should be seen as ways to enhance and focus its story.

“speaking.” is meant to be absurd, transgressive, and weird, yes -- but most of all, it’s meant to make you laugh. As the director, I speak for the entire cast and crew when I say that we hope our film provides you a unique and memorable experience. Thank you for taking the time to consider “speaking.”

--Nich Esposito