These Flowers is a short film about the effects of trauma and the fallout of abuse. I’ve always been interested in human behavior, human fragility, the ways we bend and the ways we break. As a writer, the themes I go back to again and again, whether in comedy or drama, are identity, memory and grief. When I decided I wanted to have a go at directing, I had a few short scripts tucked away. I knew this was the one I wanted to do because it had haunted me for years.

 

As a writer, my projects usually start with a feeling, and an image I can’t shake. I knew I wanted the piece to feel cold, lonely, and claustrophobic—fogged in, damp to the bone, and unable to see beyond the next step—with a palette of grays and blues. The image was a woman crouched in tall grass, quiet, still, watchful as if hunted. Then a shot, and the woman takes off toward a house. A girl comes out the door holding a gun, and a man is dead. The woman is broken and jangled, and the ensuing nine and a half minutes are consumed with the struggle to regain control of herself, and to keep herself and the girl safely together.

 

We shot in March on Cape Cod, which is dependably gray and foggy in late winter, making even real life feel like black and white. But Cod Cod was not dependably gray, and we got a bit of everything—low clouds and gray skies, then bright sun, then rain, sleet, and snow. Somehow it doesn’t look like patchwork, which is a testament to Cinematographer Alex Paul, Editor John Asher, and a stellar post-production team.

As a first-time director, I am very proud of this film. I kept the script simple, brought a great group of people together, and it was a mixture of sleep-away camp and a 10,00 piece jigsaw puzzle. The experience was success enough. To have a final product I can be proud of is a rich buttercream on top.

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