*GET YOURSELF TOGETHER , MIKEY will play  at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 30*

For Tickets: https://filmfreeway.com/festival/PhiladelphiaUnnamedFilmFestival/tickets

Mikey’s (played by the fantastic Tom Hagi) situation is one part therapy and one part THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY. After a shocking  (to him) breakup Mikey goes to the store to do what most heartbroken people do, buy tons and tons of junk food. Mikey looks a mess and his card gets declined (these feel like factors in the breakup),  but a young woman buys his food for him and follows him out of the store.  There is a catch, this young woman is a student filmmaker and has mistaken Mikey for a famous actor named Yftach Segal and it’s her dream to cast him in her film.

Despite Mikeys’ many attempts to clear up her confusion, Mikey decides to take on the challenge. In doing so,  he discovers that immersing himself in the character is on some levels a form of therapy for his recent traumatic breakup. Like many actual actors, Mikey channels that sadness, confusion and anger into his performance and Danna, our student film director, eats it up. Why wouldn’t she? She still believes she has found an A list actor to be in her student film! But, that’s just not enough for Mikey, now he needs even more from his performance. He wants to learn and understand how an actor like Yftach Segal can cry those actual tears. Determined, Mikey lands at the doorstep of Yftach and basically invites himself in. Though Yftach has made it clear that this visit is unwelcome, he listens cautiously to Mikey’s tale of mistaken identity and his need to learn from Yftach himself how to master the single rolling tear.

When a struggle between the two very similar looking men ensues, Yftach ends up bloodied and begging for mercy and it is here where Mikey finds what he was looking for. He needs to know how to emote as an actor the same way Yftach just did with the single tear rolling down his cheek and the expression of a broken man in his eyes. To achieve this Mikey and Yftach will have to really expose their true selves  and then allow their characters to take over.

To me the horror element of this is how scary it can be when someone disassociates from common rationalizations to work to their own benefit.  Mikey wasn’t enough for his girlfriend Shira, that’s why she left him. Yftach is all Danna has ever wanted and is even willing to bend reality to get even slightly close to that by substituting Mikey in as Yftach in her mind.  This means that Mikey is now enough for her, even though he now also needs to bend reality to fit into this role and keep Danna.  Then there is poor Yftach, who has no fucking clue how he got involved in any of this.

This dark comedic-at-times Isreali short is not like one I have seen before. Its interesting on many levels as well as the fact that it has been programmed among the other films at PUFF.  It’s not your typical horror, but then again, this isn’t your typical festival!

There is very little info on the film online (like an IMDB for example) but it is a film I would seek out strictly because it’s a well done short with a unique story line.

” Thought provoking, dark and unique”