Lincoln High senior featured in Omaha Film Festival
Senior Sasha Sepahpur poses on the Omaha Film Festival carpet on March 8, 2018. Photo courtesy of Up End Productions.
By Rukhshona Islamova – FEATURE
With the help of a few friends Lincoln High Senior Sasha Sepahpur wrote and directed a short film that was featured in the annual Omaha Film Festival. Upon hearing about the film festival from a friend that lives in Omaha, Sasha decided to write a film of his own. Sepahpur’s inspiration sprung from his IB art class. The class is focusing on memory as a central theme this semester.
“It was really surreal to be chosen and have the film shown, because the selection was so tight,” Sepahpur said. “I’ve been interested in film for awhile, and this experience elevated my interest.”
While brainstorming about memory Sepahpur stumbled upon the idea of amnesia. He took the concept and ran with it. Through that, bloomed a story about a boy who wakes up with transient global amnesia (short term memory loss) in his car.
The boy who is never named (played by LHS senior Jack Buchanan) uses items in his car to piece back his memory and comes to realize that he is in a great deal of danger.
The curation of the film (titled Amnesia), took one month in all. The process consisted of brainstorming the story, writing the script and then filming the movie. The whole movie was filmed and directed by Sepahpur. He also handled most of the festival work, but the planning was done by him along with Buchanan and fellow senior Mackenzie Davenport.
Although the film is just shy of four minutes, it is jam packed with action, flashbacks and frustration. The unnamed main character wakes up in the backseat of a car with no memory of past events. Upon further inspection he realizes his friend: James (played by Jaylin Weiss) who had been driving has disappeared in a hurry leaving the driver’s door open.
Through multiple flashbacks the boy remembers that he and James had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught two men (played by LHS senior Anthony Delaney and Brook Pickering) standing over a dead body (Mackenzie Davenport).
They were then chased by the men leading the boy to where he was now, in the car. The film ends with Buchanan running into the early light of the morning.
“We got up at 5 in the morning to give the impression of early morning (early enough so that only at the end is dawn breaking). Presumably the whole affair happened over the course of an evening, and a night,” Sepahpur said.
The film festival received 900 applications from over 70 countries and Amnesia had the honor of being chosen. So, on March 8th seniors, Sepahpur, Buchanan, and Davenport attended the first showing of their film, Amnesia at the Omaha Film Festival (OFF).
