WHAT I NEED, 13min., Romance
Directed by Jake Skrok
Two lifelong friends try to reconnect a year after breaking up. But on their snack run for one who is now pregnant and married they find there are still feelings between them.

https://www.instagram.com/whatineed_short

Get to know the filmmaker:

1. What motivated you to make this film?
The origin of this story came from a break-up I had in 2019. It had a moment when we tried to reconnect a few months later, and there was still a scary connection there. So I found myself feeling many things I felt out of control and I wanted to explore a character making a choice I was struggling to accept myself.

2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?
I believe I first had the idea of the story at the beginning of 2020 as a concept to maybe try at the 48hr film festival. Then I had the first screening of it in November of 2022.

3. How would you describe your film in two words!?
Painful Love

4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
I think personally it was having to answer the question if this is a story I should be telling. From the beginning of the writing process, I had people in my writer's group and friends asking why I felt it needed to be about two LGBTQ+ characters when I don't personally belong to that community. It is a fair question and something I wanted to make sure I had an answer and reason for. Enately I felt it was the truest form of the story I was telling and as I wrote the characters it was just always what they were. It was actually my therapist who really helped me realize the answer to it. So the whole journey of "What I Need" has helped me grow, as a person and as a filmmaker.

5. What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?
I was moved deeply to see the emotions landing with people who watched it. To see that it was communicating the feelings I wanted it to be.

6. When did you realize that you wanted to make films?
I have always wanted to be a storyteller, I was writing books before I knew how to spell. Growing up watching movies was always what I preferred to be doing. I went through my whole schooling career assuming that everyone wanted to make movies or work in film in some way. It was only when I was applying for internships and jobs in my last year of college that I was talking with friends about what we wanted to do that I realized the desire I had to tell stories and work in the industry wasn't a normal baseline for everyone. It was my passion telling me it's what I wanted to do so badly it was just a core part of who I am.

7. What film have you seen the most in your life?
This is tough because I am not much of a rewatcher of things. I would probably have to say it's a Christmas movie. Either "A Christmas Story", which my dad always has on for all of Christmas Day, or "Scrooged" which is my favorite Christmas movie and I try to watch it at least once every Christmas.

8. What other elements of the festival experience can we and other festivals implement to satisfy you and help you further your filmmaking career?
For me I always love connecting with other filmmakers and having disscussion and finding new people I want to work with. My favorite part of the filmmaking process is the colobration. So I will always love having more people to colobrate and make stuff with. That is what I try to get from each festival I go to, events that allow for networking and meet new people. I'd love a speed dating like event for directors and producers to rotate around getting time to chat with one another one on one.

9. You submitted to the festival via FilmFreeway. How has your experiences been working on the festival platform site?
I really enjoy FilmFreeway. This is only my second film and the last one I didn't lean into FilmFreeway as much, but this time I uploaded my film and artwork on there and it has made it very easy to submit to a lot of festivals all at once.

10. What is your favorite meal?
I really enjoy breakfast, but I don't like eating that early in the morning. So I usually end up having some form of brunch, and it'll either be a nice homemade breakfast sandwich or breakfast tacos.

11. What is next for you? A new film?
Well I am producing two shorts for friends and fellow writers. But I have my next short ready to shoot later this year. I am in early pre-prdocution of that, building out my team and what not. But I am also writing a feature length version of this short that expands on the story across one of the character's whole life. I have a friend with her own prodcution comanpy who is helping me get the feature version of this story made. Then on top of that just more and more writing.