Then She Was Gone

Plot

Basil (Burleigh Smith) lives in Perth, Western Australia and feels isolated. His psychologist provides little help. Then Basil meets Mia (Sarah Louella), a florist. He pretends to share her love of ballet and invites her to a performance. They have a great time but several days later, Mia tells him she's only interested in him as a friend. Romantically, she prefers men who are masculine.

Basil does his best to hide his hurt. He continues to spend time with Mia and tells her he was raised without a father and knows little of what it is to be a man. This strikes a chord with Mia, who never had a mother. Mia attempts to make Basil more masculine and becomes unsettled when her girlfriends show interest in him. After an evening at the ballet, Basil and Mia spend the night together. In the morning, Basil cruelly rejects Mia, using similar phrases she had used earlier. "But I'd really like to be friends!" he tells her.

Alone, Basil considers his actions. "Sure, what I had done to Mia was selfish, heartless, despicable," he says. "And, for the first time in my life, I felt like a man."

Production

After shooting several previous films in colour on high-definition video, Smith decided to shoot Then She Was Gone in grainy black-and-white on Super 8 film.

A longer version of the film exists, but has not been released.

Festival Screenings

Then She Was Gone screened at film festivals around the world, including the Tropfest Best of the West screening at the Film and Television Institute, the Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival, Dresdner Schmalfilmtage (Germany), the Dungog Film Festival (New South Wales, Australia), the Academy Award-accredited Flickerfest (Australia) and the High Desert Shorts International Film Festival (Nevada).

Reception

Smith won Best Director at the 2011 West Australian Screen Awards. In his acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to one of his former Curtin University lecturers, who had told Smith on several occasions that he would never succeed as a director.

The film won Best Drama at the Katoomba Short Film Festival, Best Screenplay at the Angry Film Festival and an Audience Award at the Sydney Underground Film Festival.

Caught Short programmer Katharine Rogers described Then She Was Gone as "Smith's playful observation of unrequited love and the gross transformations people undertake in order to win affection. Confidently written and uniquely styled, Smith's film is an original take on a common theme."