Description:

TYPE: SAG Student Short Film
CONTRACT: NYU SAG Student Agreement/ Non-Union Sag waiver (for non-union actors)
TITLE: DISGRACE
DIRECTOR: J. Casey Modderno (Devotion, Lessons Learned Through Shadow and Glass)
PRODUCER: Benjamin Kim

SHOOT DATES: 11/8 through 11/11 (8-hour shoot days)
SHOOT LOCATION: Connecticut (Stay over)
TRAVEL & INDIVIDUAL LODGING PROVIDED

A dark family drama set in a small New England coal town, a lower middle class family is thrust into crisis.  The father, a rigid man of wounded masculinity, discovers that their house is being seized in a foreclosure but refuses to mention it. Instead, he channels his insecurities into anger towards his family. Meanwhile, the eldest son, Milo, a rebellious, restless and cynical boy (a bully of sorts), has been developing a penchant for pornography depicting acts of violence towards women; an interest that his parents have recently discovered. His father harshly punishes him for it and the unstable roots of their home-life are revealed in the process.

Thematically, the film explores the way in which children are conditioned through their family - in this case towards patriarchal violence - and the ways in which masculinity can function as a dangerous crutch for hardship. What ensues is a bitter showdown between father and son; a corporeal exchange that implicates the whole family. As the pair becomes increasingly at ends, we begin to see that the two aren’t, in fact, all that different. As the eternal expression states; like father, like son.