R.E. (2019)

R.E., a shy, soft-spoken boy, finds himself in the middle of a more rambunctious social scene than his usual environment. After the events of a high school party, he suffers through the side effects. Caught in a rumor mill and drama at school, he is left to navigate his own sense of things while simultaneously trying to make sense of others' actions and accounts. With R.E.'s reputation called into question, the truth of what really happened at the party is sought after by multiple sources. Different characters share their recollection of the party and, in the process, the meaning of consent is explored. A combination of different but equally plausible accounts of the event are presented with an absence of evidence to prove one account above others and the inability to disqualify any of the accounts. The characters and the viewers are left in the same quandary of intersectionality. An homage to the Rashomon Effect, this short film takes on the highly topical issue of teenage sexual missteps and begs the question: how is it that an event is interpreted differently by different people, even though they are evaluating the same event?