The Departure

A man who can’t pay his debts is pushed to an act of violence. A single shot short film.

We see a man in extreme close-up. Eyes glazed over. He could be in the middle of a daydream. He’s somewhere else. The ring of a bell above a door brings him back into the room. His eyes flit around detecting surrounding sounds giving us a clue of where we are – muffled traffic, a news channel on a radio, the hum of a fridge, running water from a tap, the hiss of a frying pan – Kitchen or a cafe maybe? A loud buzzing. A phone. The eyes look down. Indifferent, but unmoving. The buzzing stops and the eyes look to the side for a thought. Two more short buzzes before the man decides to pick up the phone in front of him. He has six voicemail messages. The voicemail operator starts to speak and the camera slowly creeps back. The voicemails are from a woman and man. His wife and a loan shark. The messages will tell us how the man got there and the camera slowly moving back will reveal where he is and what he has done. The Departure is the story about a man who can’t pay back his debts. A man who can’t speak to his wife. A man pushed to an extreme act of violence. A man in trouble.