Grounded: Upcoming Australian short thriller reflecting our modern fears
Filmmakers Josephine Croft and Jesse Richards explore how it feels to be completely isolated in a place usually brimming with people.
By Dayna Di Fulvio – 09/09/2021
In the last two years, due to the recent pandemic, people worldwide have become familiar with what it feels like to be anxious and how this can affect your mind and body. It can change your view of the world profoundly. As your breath becomes shallow and thoughts begin to run uncontrollably, the walls of your chest feel as if they’re tightening, unable to get sufficient air. Restlessness is followed by fear and then unwillingly pulled into a panic. Unequivocally, leaving you to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated.
This is the distress Croft’s character Anne endures when she wakes up, alone, on an empty plane with all passengers departed and the crew having locked up and sealed the cabin. Trapped, with the sun setting beneath the skyline and the temperatures lowering, Anne begins to hear footsteps. Something unseen is hunting her.
Josephine Croft
Writer, producer, and lead actor Josephine Croft said that she and director Jesse Richards
“…wanted to play with the idea that maybe the monster wasn’t real, maybe it was just a manifestation of her anxiety.”
Josephine Croft – Grounded
While there is no clear monster reveal in this unsettling seven-minute thriller it embraces the presence of something ominous lurking in the shadows through the use of silhouettes and impeccable sound design.
Inspired by the ‘Alien’ film franchise pioneered by Ridley Scott, Croft explains the reasoning behind making the monster hidden from sight.
“One of the reason’s I love Ridley Scott’s Alien’s films so much is that the monster is often in the shadows and you never really get a great look at it. I mean, that monster was also next level and I’m not sure there’s been a better monster since, but everything in those films was so dark, you could often only make out
Writer, producer, and lead actor of Grounded, Josephine Croft.
silhouettes.”
Grounded is hitting the film festival circuit across 2021 and 2022 with the development commenced for a feature-length version.
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