ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
A young witch mourning her sister’s death creates a monster whose unrequited affection sends her on a quest for meaning.

SYNOPSIS
Julia weeps into a cauldron. The smoke, glowing in the moonlight, illuminates the right side of her face. Copper ladles and pots dangle from the fireplace mantle above her. Dried herbs hang upside down from the low ceiling's wooden beams.

She twirls a chunk of hair around her left pointer finger, severs it with a knife, and drops it in the cauldron. The smoke excites as she pierces the pad of her thumb, dripping blood into the abyss. In the dark cabin, the silhouette of an arm rises from the cauldron and inflates with life. A monster, Fancy, is born.

Julia’s mother condemns this use of dark magic to bring back Julia’s dead sister, threatening her to reverse the spell. But consumed by guilt for failing to save her sister, Julia is willing to do whatever it takes to protect her spirit, now embodied by Fancy.

In a fleeting moment of clarity, Julia's mother attempts to empathize with her daughter's grief, but it's too late. Julia begins to treat Fancy with the same rejection she herself had endured, and in doing so, explores the universal human tendency to be complicit in familial cycles, even when we long to break free. As a monster created on the basis of conditional love, Fancy grapples with the meaning of her existence and her place in the world.

PROJECT TYPE Narrative Short

DIRECTOR Molly Loftus
SCREENWRITER Molly Loftus
PRODUCER Molly Loftus, Emily Mansfield

WEBSITE mollyloftus.com/narrative