2002 Great Lakes Independent Film Festival

SoundProof

Category: Narrative Short  14min 59sec
Director: Robert Sherwin

Trapped in a world of darkness, Ted is a lonely man with an extraordinary gift for hearing. By painting pictures in his head with sound, he lives a vicarious and safe existence. Meeting his neighbor Sarah and boyfriend Jared for the first time, he immediately senses something wrong. His eerie premonition about Jared is later confirmed when he catches him trying to break into Sarah's apartment. When Sarah stubbornly refuses to accept the truth, it comes back to haunt her in a terrible act of violence. Ted has a split-second to decide who he really is and how far he's willing to go to save a life...and perhaps change his own forever.

Principal Cast:
Jonathan Ave  
Elizabeth Ellinghaus  
Marc Diraison  

Director: Robert Sherwin
Robert Sherwin, a New York-based filmmaker, wrote and directed his first short film For Immediate Release while a graduate student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  It won several awards including a national FOCUS award (screened at the Director’s Guild of America), CINE Eagle, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Drama Award and a Paulette Goddard Screenwriting Award.  Festival screenings included Aspen, Nashville and Rochester (“Best of Fest”).  His next short film Jitters was distributed by Tapestry Films for international television exhibition including Ireland, England, Denmark and Hong Kong.  It received a domestic network premiere on PBS’ “The Independents”, a comedy anthology hosted by Buck Henry.  The film was also chosen (along with 4 films from Sundance) for the inaugural program of the Independent Feature Project’s (North) In-Flight Series sponsored by Northwest Airlines. In 1996, he produced and directed Dirty Laundry, his first feature film.  Starring Academy Award-nominated Tess Harper and Emmy Award-winner Jay Thomas, this romantic comedy premiered at the London Film Festival and enjoyed a theatrical run in New York and Los Angeles.  The New York Times said “Tess Harper gives a spirited performance.”  Time Out Magazine called the film “a black marital comedy with its share of neat one-liners....transmitting a genuine sense of pain, confusion and absurdity.” Sherwin discovered film through his interest in still photography.  His urban landscape photographs have been widely exhibited and are in permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum and Museum of the City of New York.