Palm Trees and Power Lines
2018 · 16m · USA
Directed by Jamie Dack
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Sixteen-year-old Charlotte drifts through a listless Southern California summer until an older man named Tommy follows her home and offers a way out of her loneliness — a connection that turns dangerous when he betrays her trust.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A grooming film that refuses to look like one — no thriller music, no clear villain entrance — just banal suburban drift that turns your stomach precisely because nothing feels alarming until everything is.
The short that became Jamie Dack's Sundance feature — its terrifying trick is making grooming look like ordinary kindness until the door shuts. A formal restraint that doubles as moral argument.
Jamie Dack stripping thriller-genre signaling away and letting a grooming dynamic unfold with unsettling mundanity — the danger never coded as danger until too late. Cannes Cinéfondation selection; this short begat the feature for a reason.
Festivals
- Cannes Film Festival — Cinéfondation 2018