116 (Work In Progress)

Cast

• Julia Campanelli
• Sean Yves Lessard

Credits

Directors

Julia Campanelli

Screenwriters

Julia Campanelli

Producers

Julia Campanelli Nick Atkinson

Directors Statement

As a women over 40, I often feel under-represented in the film industry, both in front of and behind the camera. As an actress, roles are usually limited to the token caring mother, grandmother, or evil boss. Or all together invisible.

With 116 my goal is to show that women over 40 have a complex love life and sexual life, without restrictions or judgement. Not invisible.

Love is complicated at any age. It can be messy, intriguing, and obsessive, as well as fulfilling. It can also be unexpected. I switched the "traditional" roles of the man and woman. The woman is in the power position, and the struggle between the man and woman to maintain or gain power comprises their relationship.

By employing the use of role play - Shakespeare's sonnet about ideal love, written over 400 years ago - I ask the questions, can love exist without equality? Have relationships changed at all in 400 years? Is love really love, or is it possessing power over someone? And in having that power, how far will someone go to get it, keep it, or surrender it?

I have always been fascinated with hotel rooms and their appearance of privacy, when, in fact, they are very public places. Housekeepers, bell hops, room service enter with virtual freedom. Yet each hotel guest assumes the appearance of privacy, a type of role play, which in fact does not exist, given the thin walls and prying eyes. Guests are aware of the people next door and the hotel employees - see and be seen, hear and be heard. By placing the film in a hotel room I wanted to create a voyeuristic feeling for the audience, letting them see the intimate and obsessive details of what some may call a bizarre relationship, and asking them - who are they to judge? When we do, in fact, judge people, and their personal relationships, obsessively.