BIND
Inspired by true events
USA | FINLAND | 13’ | Short film
Premiered at the Florida Film Festival in April 2021 and showed at the prestigious 2021 CAA Moebius Film Festival, the National Competition at the 2021 Helsinki International Film Festival (Love & Anarchy), 2021 Nordic Talents, 2021 CalArts Showcase and the 2021 Tacoma International Film Festival.
CAST: Emma Halleen, Tim Cummings and Nick Marini.
Director & Writer Inka Rusi | Producers Sara Fenton & Tanja Rusi | DoP Richard Van | Original score by Marko Nyberg | Executive Producers Nina Menkes, Tomi Alapaattikoski, Lauri Markkanen and Jolyon Neubert
Set in Southern California in the late 1970s and inspired by true events, BIND is a film about a teenage girl who tries to come to terms with her abusive father during a road trip to the desert.
Shot in a highly cinematic style, BIND has noticeable touches of the Western genre that act as a subtle reference to the origins of American gun culture. The film peers into the tense relationship between the teenage Brenda and her father, watching him, undone by the trauma his own life has been, plant the seeds that will become her undoing.
This film was made with the generous help of The Markkanen Family Foundation, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, The Alison Doerner Fund for Women Pioneers in Filmmaking, Oskar Öflunds Foundation, Tomi Alapaattikoski and Jolyon Neubert.
“Over the years I have watched so many shorts about sexual exploitation that didn't have anything to say and felt oddly exploitative themselves, so it was really great to see a short like BIND that evolved beyond that. A gut punch of a short… Also, stellar first shot.”
— Levin Menekse, Writer & Producer
Gus Van Sant, Neal Edelstein & Onerva Pictures present
HEATSTROKE
A political thriller and existential murder mystery, HEATSTROKE is set in Los Angeles and Cairo, during the searing heat of a contemporary summer. Older sister, celebrity NIKKI from LA, is separated by both physical distance and emotional trauma from her younger sister, JANET, wife of a diplomat stationed in Cairo. The film’s root is a history of violent, possibly sexual abuse that is buried within these women’s interior landscapes.
With its atmosphere of violence against an East/West nexus, LAX a key location, the film involves an American diplomat murdered in Afghanistan and includes sequences of raging fires in both the US and Egypt. Stylistically, the film contrasts highly beautiful surreal images with a brutal realism.
FEATURE FILM 100' | UK | USA | FRANCE | MOROCCO | Writer & Director Nina Menkes
GENRE: psychological thriller | STATUS: in development
‘No less than David Lynch, Ms. Menkes is an artist of the unconscious for whom the creative and the spiritual quest are one and the same.’
— Dennis Lim, The New York Times
ME, BRENDA
A Coming of Age story of a teenage girl trapped inside herself. An exploration of guilt, crime and punishment.
FEATURE FILM | 120’ | US I FINLAND | Director & Writer Inka Rusi | Script Consultant Majse Garde Bergman
GENRE: drama, thriller, procedural | STATUS: in development
ME, BRENDA was selected for a script development clinic organised by APFI (Audiovisual Producers Finland) in 2021, under the mentorship of Danish Dramaturg and current Creative Producer at TV2 Denmark Majse Garde Bergmann.
Pictured: Director’s Mood Board