Hiawatha
2025 · 14m · USA
Directed by Rachel B. Joyce
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Two long-distance lovers search for a way forward — or backward — when the bedrock of their twenty-year relationship begins to crack.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A debut that already knows what it's about — Joyce uses the Midwest landscape as a third character, making physical distance feel like a form of grief.
Twenty-year long-distance relationship cracking with Vella Lovell — the cast is interesting, the framing is a midwestern rumination on love and geography. Familiar territory done with restraint, maybe.
Vella Lovell and Ashley Zukerman in a 14-minute long-distance-relationship piece is strong casting for a fundamentally interior premise — geography-as-emotional-condition is the right framing for the form. The midwestern specificity helps; risk is the rumination tipping into the generic.
Festivals
- New Orleans Film Festival 2025
- Hollyshorts Film Festival 2025