When a casting room door closes, a quiet offer lingers — and Nick, a struggling actor, is left to weigh his dreams against the cost of chasing them.
When a casting room door closes, a quiet offer lingers — and Nick, a struggling actor, is left to weigh his dreams against the cost of chasing them.
Directed by: Josephine Lohoar Self
After a disastrous audition, Nick, a struggling young actor, is approached by a director, who notices him for all the wrong reasons and offers him a role in return for sexual favours. He declines at first, but as he is confronted with his humiliating daily life and desperate need for any type of validation, Nick’s boundaries start to waver. This leads to a decision that might get him a fix of success, but none of the satisfaction he thought would come along with it.
Josephine Lohoar Self is a British writer and director who started out in animation and never quite looked back, though she does still sneak a pencil behind her ear now and then. Her first short film, The Fabric of You, made its way onto the Oscars longlist in 2021 and picked up a Scottish BAFTA nomination.
She went on to direct a series of animated shorts, earning nominations from the Royal Television Society and the Irish Film and Television Awards in the process. These days, she’s trading stop-motion for live action, developing her first feature, The Wall Dogs, with support from the BFI and Cardel Entertainment. She recently premiered her first German-language short, Industry Standard, and has just wrapped shooting her BFI-funded short Daddy’s Girl.
When she’s not on set, she’s often at her desk writing for LAMDA, the UK’s top drama school (The Guardian). Her scripts have been directed by some serious talent, including BIFA winner Sean Lìonadh and BAFTA-longlisted Keeran Anwar Blessie.
Josephine is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents, the Scottish Film Talent Network, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival Talent Lab. She’s taken part in a number of talent development schemes that have shaped her voice and sharpened her storytelling instincts. She’s also served on juries for BAFTA Scotland and Palm Springs ShortFest, because if she’s going to cry in a dark room, it might as well be professionally.
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