Sept. 12, 2023 - Filmmaker Douglas Alan Cunningham (HIGHWAY)
HIGHWAY, 11min,. USA
Directed by Douglas Alan Cunningham
Betrayed by her husband, Amanda, a former Army Ranger, drives hours to meet a revenge lover but is followed by a mysterious and menacing truck on lonely desert roads.
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Get to know the filmmaker:
I’ve always been fascinated by neo-noir westerns, films like Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971), Oren Shai’s The Frontier (2015), and the early works of director John Dahl, especially Kill Me Again (1989) and Red Rock West (1993). John Sayles’ Lone Star (1996), Jonathan Mostow’s Breakdown (1997), and the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men (2007) are three other greats in this same subgenre. Although I wouldn’t call Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984) a neo-noir western, per se, it shares many of the same aesthetics and was a huge influence on my early thoughts about HIGHWAY. Equally influential were Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1982) and Mad Max Fury Road (2015), both directed by George Miller. Finally, Ridley Scott’s Themla and Louise (1992) also influenced HIGHWAY, not just because of the road movie aspects, but also because of the theme of sisterhood that features so prominently in that film. When I first saw Lindsey Hawkes (who plays Amanda, the lead in HIGHWAY) in a different short film in late 2021, somehow her look–that mixture of physical toughness and emotional vulnerability–brought all those different influences together into one story in my mind. Once that happened, the script was not difficult to write at all, and I was determined to make the film.
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