Chris Farrington | 18mins | USA

Against the backdrop of 19th-century wireless telegraph experimentation, a scientist must survive a confrontation with a distraught local who claims the mysterious technology keeps him from contacting his recently departed wife.

SCREENING SCHEDULE
7:00PM      Friday, Oct 15, 2010
indieScreen

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Writer and Director | Chris Farrington
Producers | Chris Farrington and Tess Ortbals
Original music | Christopher Thomas
Cinematography | Andrew Russo
Film editing | Amy Reynolds
Casting | Nick Anderson
Production design | Roy Rede

DIRECTOR’S BIO
Portland, Oregon native Chris Farrington received his BA in Art/Semiotics from Brown University in 2000. Since then, he’s written and directed commercials, music videos, short films, and documentaries. In 2006, he enrolled in the USC School of Cinematic Arts production program. While there, he received the Jeffery Jones Short Story Scholarship, was a finalist in the 2008-2009 Coca Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Contest, and won grants from both Fotokem and the Sloan Foundation for his short film Signal. He received his MFA in production in 2009.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
We’ve reached a point in history where technology has become so ubiquitous that humanity no longer wonders at its near-mystical properties.  If it’s remarkable, it must be controlled by some amazing microchips. 19th century European and American society, though, was awe-struck by continually evolving new technology.  Millions of people traveled great distances to World Fairs where they marveled at the latest miracles of science.  I love that optimism, that sense of awe people must have felt when they first witnessed something as simple as a glowing light bulb.  How elated they must have felt to see that man was capable of anything. With Signal, I hope to bring an audience back to that time so they may briefly be caught up in that sense of wonder. Another goal of this movie is to examine the how mankind is affected by its inability to know what happens after we die. I read the texts of the Christians, the Buddhists, and others because it comforts me to think that my soul, or some equivalent energy, will continue on after my corporeal existence ends.  The characters in Signal yearn for more concrete answers. They’re stuck in grief from past experiences and believe that the truth behind the greatest mystery will also contain the key to their release.  Signal endorses no specific view.  It only looks at how we are motivated by such frustration and pain.