Short Films in Focus: The Year of Staring at Noses | Features

All this makes for a wild ride of a film that is fun to go back and look at a second and third time. I don’t watch “The Bachelor,” but I have indulged in trashy reality TV before (check out “Don’t Tell The Bride” if you want an addictive, completely absurd wedding-based reality show. It’s currently on Tubi). I’m sure not all the rejected contestants are like Samantha, but this film does add another layer of weirdness to the whole concept. 

Q&A with star, co-director Karen Knox

How did this come about?

While not a "pandemic film" this story was definitely born out of the mania that the pandemic wrought. During that time period when you were only allowed to see one person "outside your household," my co-director Matt Eastman and I would go on what we affectionately christened our "depression walks." We missed movie making, and when I told Matt I was going to get a nose job we joked that we should turn it into a movie. Then, it wasn't a joke.

We filmed the movie over the course of two years which let us develop the narrative and fine tuned the edit as we shot. What's great about working with a small crew (two people on this film!) is that you can revise/reshoot as you find the story in real time. There was no "script" for this film - it was more of an intuitive path to finding the ultimate narrative we were trying to tell.  

Back to the nose job scene. Are we watching the actual reveal on the film or a reenactment? If real, were you mindful of being “in character” as it was happening? 

Right you are! The reveal scene was the very first time I saw my nose "in the flesh." When the iphone rolled for the clip at the office the nurses graciously decided not to notice that my personality totally switched. I'm sure they've seen ALL KINDS of things at that office so they didn't comment. 

Do you think of Samantha as an archetype for these contestants or is this a complete exaggeration?