By Edward Brown

Distancia is a powerfully succinct short film that explores the overwhelming agony that comes with missing someone you love. Bad Monkey Pictures, the project’s producer, contends that the short is about an estranged father (Ed Trucco) trying to reconnect with his distant daughter (Amanda Méndez). After watching the film several times, I can honestly say that description sells the movie…short. The movie spends a potent eight minutes putting you through an emotional wringer. And it does so in the most beautiful way possible. The cinematography is crisp, the sound is enchanting, and the story is endearing. Distancia is a short film that touches your soul.

There is a saying among the culinary inclined that you eat with your eyes first. Distancia stimulates your appetite for its main course by providing beautifully luminous wide shots of New York City. Melvin Audaz, the film’s director, bathes the film’s close shots in a melancholy blue that instantly makes our unnamed protagonist appropriately pitiful. However, the medium shots are awash in reds, yellows, and celestial whites that keep the overall atmosphere of the film from being totally masochistic. That’s important because Distancia forces you to tap into your darkest self. It encourages you to confront situations in your life that have not worked out according to plan.

And it does so with a beautiful siren narrating to you the whole time. Our mysterious main character spends the entire film recalling voicemails and messages from a daughter he longs to be with. There’s a high degree of ambiguity as to how and why they’re separated, but the answers to those questions are really irrelevant. They’re irrelevant because the point of this film is to lean into an exercise in pathos. Just allow yourself to feel something. Share a moment of empathy or sympathy with another person. I think it’s an underrated endeavor in the current iteration of our society and the fact that Distancia provides an avenue to do that is refreshing. 

That exploration makes the pithy project so endearing. It seems to come from a place that feels real and helpful. We’ve all suffered through regrettable decisions that lead to deceptively miserable consequences. You’ve said something that ruined a friendship. You chose a vice over a relationship. Or you’ve had one of those things happen to you. Humans are not always good to each other and choosing to act that way causes real reverberations. Tackle that trauma. You don’t need to directly relate to Distancia’s set of circumstances to enjoy it because it paints with broad strokes. Just spend the eight minutes that it gives you to revel in your emotions and enjoy a little bit of catharsis. 

The film's trailer is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm2JBV9K8xk