Mammoth Film Festival / DUST 2020 – Unforgettable
Hoping to fix a failed relationship a young woman kidnaps her ex-boyfriend and subjects him to technology that alters his memories in order to rebuild the foundation of their partnership and get their lives back on track.
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Sabrina Jaglom
Watch Unforgettable here:
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
My co-writer and I had both recently gone through breakups and we were very interested in the role memory plays in relationships of all kind. It's common knowledge that memory is subjective, but we don't discuss how malleable it can be. And yet we base so many decisions on what we remember and take them as facts. I wanted to explore the way one woman was coping with her memories of a relationship while the breakup is fresh and she is in that period of wondering what she could have done different and wishing she could go back and fix things. I love the idea of technology as a form of wish fulfillment and wanted to touch on the way in which something as fragile as memories can affect everything.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Whenever you remember something, your recall is based on the last time you thought about it, which inevitably morphs at each recollection. Plentiful examples exist of people believing in incidents or events that never happened after seeing images or hearing stories. Just recently, DNA evidence exonerated a woman who still firmly believes she committed a crime she actually had no part in after years of being told that she was guilty and looking at the evidence. What if you could technologically harness this ability to create memories – it may very well happen in the near future. Even if the process fell under rules and regulations, there are always opportunists looking for unconventional ways to achieve their goals. If someone is at all interested in the role memory plays in our day-to-day lives, they will enjoy exploring its impact through this heightened and personal lens.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
This is an unusual love story about how far someone is willing to go to secure their ideal relationship. Katrina is a deeply emotional person who believes she is always right and knows what’s best for those in her life. Her attempt to right the course of her relationship with illegal memory implants falls into a grey area: the moral ambiguity of acting from a place of pain and hurt and in favor of love and destiny. While touching on the power memory exerts over our daily lives and how we put such weight in something so transient, it also opens up questions of power dynamics present in any relationship and flips many conventions on its head. In the media, we often see women at the whims of men in romantic partnerships, but here the woman is the one to act with total authority. It calls to attention to how women must often go to great lengths to achieve the goals society thinks they should possess and the stock others put in one’s romantic status when you are a woman in your late 20s and early 30s.
Here, the audience witnesses a specific event in these characters’ lives, while also gaining an understanding of the greater context. Is there anyone who hasn’t wished they could rewrite the past and obtain a better outcome? Imagine a couple waking up and one party knows what has transpired, and how the drama will unfold with this new balance in place and with one party privy to an unfathomable secret. What is the aftermath of what might happen if you reimagine the past in order to change keep your significant other’s heart?
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
I was set on writing something in the black market of memory insertion technology before I landed on the idea of this script, and the framework of one woman trying to fix a relationship. The main struggle was adding in moments where she was able to remain somewhat sympathetic, and the script evolved to show that the protagonist was acting from a place of love and hurt.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
I have received varied feedback, based on the emotional response people have had watching the short. Some people are wildly uncomfortable by the conceit, others have discussed that they wished they could use the technology. Each response has sparked an interesting debate about the way our brains work and are constantly changing.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
At times viewers have given their ideas and musings on where the story progresses after the short, what happens to the characters. I have heard suggestions and ideas that have completely surprised me, especially in thinking about the evolution from the short into a feature.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I am hoping to gain wider exposure for the film as well as for myself as a director. I hope that people watch the short and are inspired to have some of the conversations I've been a part of because of it. Also, I think there are many ways in which this short could evolve into something larger, and I would love to find someone to champion it in that way.
Interview: February 2020
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Unforgettable
Hoping to fix a failed relationship a young woman kidnaps her ex-boyfriend and subjects him to technology that alters his memories in order to rebuild the foundation of their partnership and get their lives back on track.
Length: 6:29
Director: Sabrina Jaglom
Producer: Sabrina Jaglom, Ethan Webman, Rishi Rajani
Writer: Sabrina Jaglom, Rishi Rajani
About the writer, director and producer:
SABRINA JAGLOM is a LA-based writer, director, and producer. She studied film at RADA in London, FAMU in Prague, and graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film & Television. At NYU, she wrote, directed, and produced several shorts, many of which screened and won awards at major film festivals. Upon graduation, she worked in production on various projects including Showtime’s The Affair and Nancy Meyer’s The Intern. She moved back to LA to work in Film/TV development at Whalerock Industries, which had an overhead deal with MGM. She then went on to serve as a producer on Home Again (starring Reese Witherspoon), which was released nationwide in the fall of 2017. Most recently, Sabrina directed a music video for the Nashville artist Charlie Rodgers, produced a commercial for Walmart/The Oscars, directed an AirBnB commercial, and directed the West Coast premiere of a play titled Empathitrax. Currently, she is preparing to direct her first feature Jane, which she wrote. She is represented at the United Talent Agency (UTA) and Grandview Management as a writer and director.
Key cast: Katrina Eroen, Luke Forbes, Giullian Gioiello
Looking for: buyers, producers, sales agents, distributors
Instagram: @sabrinajaglom
Other: IMDb
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Mammoth Film Festival, March 1st; DUST sci-fi Channel, beginning 30th