 "Rocky" & "Sam"   Opening Night  |
Film Description by writer/director Eric Schaeffer Have you ever walked past a woman on the street, and as she passed, her scent made you feel sure you knew her even though she was a stranger? Have you ever walked in the park as the fading fall sunset through the pine trees dappled the ground in front of your footsteps like an offer from the heavens to walk towards your dreams? You think of a friend and then she calls, you hear a song on the radio and are transported to a memory you're not sure is yours or not but it feels so familiar... We are all connected, and most of us know that on some deep level whether that knowledge penetrates our hearts or is stopped by our minds that want to fight for the illusion that we are forever separate from each other and from the beautiful world we live in... Mind The Gap is a story of five seemingly unrelated people.
Malissa is a young, firey girl from the south who has dreams of getting out of her small town and travelling the world. But for the time being she is devoted to taking care of her dying, bedridden mother.
Sam is a single father who lives in Vermont with his ten-year old son, Rocky. Not wanting to wait any longer for the right woman to come along, Sam birthed Rocky with an egg he bought off the internet from a surrogate mother.
Herb is a cantankerous old New Yorker who can barely walk to the corner store because of his infirmity. But he has vowed to pilgrimage on foot seven miles to the northern most tip of Manhattan to visit a part of the Hudson River -- Spuyten Duyvil -- a place he used to swim in as a child.
John is an accountant from Arizona who is trying to survive the shattered aftermath of the thing he holds dearest -- his six-year-old son, whom John left through a divorce due to his philandering.
And Jody is an amazing singer-songwriter from Brooklyn who, because of her fear, has lived in the shadow of Manhattan but never ventured there to pursue her career.
Each of our five characters has profound pain, a deep desire, tremendous drive and a need for forgiveness, whether of themselves, their parents, their ex-lovers, or the Gods they believe in. Throughout the story, their lives thematically intertwine though they never meet, until the end of the film when, through different circumstances, they all end up in New York and their lives and our story gains it’s meaning and resolve... This is a funny, touching, poignant, and human story about all of us -- our loves, our loses, our redemption and our journey in this amazing thing called life. |
