This is installment #18 of Shadow And Act’s #ShortFilmShoutout series.
Trigger warning: This film contains graphic sexual content, nudity and mentions of sexual assault.
Naima Ramos-Chapman’s short film, And Nothing Happened, is described, “A young woman juggles between the mundane and the extraordinary in an attempt to leave her NYC apartment.” But that short description patently undersells the film’s content.
Of course, that’s by design, since the meat of the film is inherent in its subtle layers of storytelling. What you think is starting out as a slice-of-life story about a young woman simply bored with life becomes a tale of a woman trying to find herself after being a victim of a rape. Her apartment is one of the things she’s trying to leave behind as she attempts to rebuild her life.
Ramos-Chapman is someone you might already know about if you’re a fan of surrealist, experimental film. She is a writer, editor and director on Terence Nance’s HBO series Random Acts of Flyness (Nance acts as the director of photography on And Nothing Happened). She has also directed Piu Piu, a short film she bills as a “surrealist thriller.” The penchant for experimentalism is on full display in And Nothing Happened, as an unflinching camera gets close, sometimes uncomfortably so, to Ramos-Chapman (who also stars in the film) as she tries to make sense of the world around her.
While Ramos-Chapman has a team around her, you can see how the film is singularly her vision as writer, director, producer and editor. Let’s hope we can see her footprint become even bigger in Hollywood.
READ MORE:
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#ShortFilmShoutout: Black Girl Magic Meets Period Piece Mystery In ‘Beauty’
#ShortFilmShoutout: The Animated Film ‘Felix’ Is A Sweet Tearjerker
Black Filmmakers, Submit Your Film To #ShortFilmShoutout
Photo credit: Naima Ramos-Chapman
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