Nia on Vacation

TYPE: Narrative Feature
GENRE: Drama
STATUS: Completed

LOGLINE

A depressed twenty-something receives a one-way ticket to freedom. Will she discover paradise, or is escape relative?

SYNOPSIS

Nia is a native New Yorker about to graduate college. Her brother Peter is a native Greek she hardly remembers. The plane ticket he sends her will be a much needed escape from her reality - and a window into his.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

I have always been compelled by stories about the underrepresented: the underachievers and the unprivileged. I want to normalize stories of how inherently weird—fascinating—even the least remarkable of us are. I’m not interested in heroes who change the world. I’m interested in the way life goes on, in spite of us, and how we are changed.

My screenplays vary greatly in the way of plot, genre and style; the unifying thread is character. Specifically, characters whose goals—if they can even identify them—don’t lend themselves to archetypal narratives. Ambivalence is a key element of Nia on Vacation.

When I was fourteen I visited my father in Greece. I hadn’t seen him since his deportation nearly ten years earlier. Upon returning to New York, when asked if I had enjoyed myself, my answer was always “well…yes and no.” I struggled to explain having been to paradise while at the same time having experienced a kind of hell. My family wasn't in the best shape.

Ambivalence—yes and no. To do my experience justice, I set out to write a simple story exploring the complex emotional implications of ambivalence. The finished film had to visually and audibly reflect the tone of the script, so we shot it cleanly with an unbiased camera. I didn’t want to force opinions on my audience. No character was lit or framed any differently than the next. The experience of those characters, however, needed to be rendered differently as their time together passed.

Because I am someone who often finds life’s hardships to be the source of life’s best comedy, I chose to shoot some of Nia and Peter’s roughest days in ultra wide, long shots. The first of their fights is covered from multiple angles, but by the third fight we have just one long, wide shot: history repeating itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Musical scoring is another subtle indicator to the audience that it is ok to laugh in these scenes, even if it seems inappropriate to do so. Editing and color correction help set the pacing and tone. With a film as subtle as Nia on Vacation, every tool at a filmmaker’s disposal is crucial in conveying the emotional arc.

We have only a brief time with Nia. Audiences may wonder about her past and worry for her future; I want them only to share her experience. I want them to feel the rush of the wind, the warmth of the sun and viscerally, the pain of loneliness. Nia on Vacation should make people laugh, perhaps self consciously. It’s a funny expectation that we have, that life--and films--should come to tidy conclusions. This film aims to challenge that expectation. 

KEY CREW

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