Withheld
Your past doesn’t have to follow you.
ABOUT
On an empty road, Violet rushes away from the car, with her captor rushing after her, and she contemplates whether to run or fight back. But the situation isn’t all bad. Ian isn’t as ominous as the knife he carries, and their complicated circumstances have already freed her from a worse situation with her abusive father. Now on the run from the law and with nowhere to turn, the two instead discover that their unlikely bond is exactly what each needs.
YEAR 2018
RUN TIME 6:22 Min
EMAIL jsarnovsky@mica.edu Website:
CAST & CREW CREDITS
DIRECTED BY Hugh A. Taylor | Jordan Sarnovsky
SCREENPLAY BY Jordan Sarnovsky
PRODUCED BY Jordan Sarnovsky | Clarke Lyons
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Ahmed Nazim
EDITED BY Jordan Sarnovsky | James P. Duffy
MUSIC BY James P. Duffy
PRINCIPAL CAST Sinclaire Schaefer | Joel Reyer
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I was drawn to filmmaking first and foremost as a writer, holding the belief that storytelling is a means of revealing the essences that people often hide in everyday life. I turned to cinema for its ability to capture people’s interior motivations in the outward subtleties of voice, gesture, body language, and facial expression. Withheld brings together these two fascinations of mine, the revelations of human connection and the secrets of people’s guarded interiors, in the ill-fated encounter between a teenage girl and a guilt-ridden man both struggling to move beyond the trauma of their pasts.
DIRECTOR BIO
Jordan Sarnovsky is a writer by trade who specializes in scriptwriting and film theory. Her love for film began during weekend movies with her father and thrived as she studied films from other cultures throughout college. She is particularly invested in Asian cinema, horror, and crime dramas. Withheld is her directorial debut and her first time co-directing, although not the first time she has worked alongside Hugh A. Taylor. As first-year film students, Jordan and Hugh turned a short script she wrote into a short film called Recognition. Jordan is completing her MFA in Filmmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
FILM AND PRODUCTION STILLS
AWARDS
FULL FILM
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Jordan Sarnovsky is a writer by trade who specializes in scriptwriting and film theory. Her love for film began during weekend movies with her father and thrived as she studied films from other cultures throughout college. She is particularly invested in Asian cinema, horror, and crime dramas. Withheld is her directorial debut and her first time co-directing, although not the first time she has worked alongside Hugh A. Taylor. As first-year film students, Jordan and Hugh turned a short script she wrote into a short film called Recognition. Jordan is completing her MFA in Filmmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
(Update provided in May 2018)