RAIN

an AFI Conservatory thesis film

The Story

when a mysterious orange light starts infecting the air, a young mother-to-be attempts to alert her family to its impending danger, whilst wrestling against their overbearing traditions and expectations of her future.

Director’s Statement

RAIN is a film inspired by living through the devastating 2019 ‘Black Christmas’ Bushfires in Australia, where an area larger than the state of Montana burned for weeks across my home country. The skies were a thick orange, sometimes deep hellish red, sometimes apocalyptic black - and yet, we continued to go to work, go to school, and exist as if the world was not falling apart around us. 

I am interested in exploring complex moral questions in my work through family dynamics, and RAIN examines our ability to be willfully blind in the face of an overwhelming truth. As we’ve seen with Coronavirus, humans have an incredible capacity to adapt to a ‘new normal’, even at the cost of our health. We follow our protagonist Sarah’s decision whether to bring a baby into the world, when it is falling apart around her. RAIN reframes the audience's view of global heating from a narrative of humans destroying our planet, to one where we are really destroying ourselves.

  • Based between Sydney and Los Angeles, Imogen was series director for all 10 episodes of ABCME series ‘Soundtrack to Our Teenage Zombie Apocalypse’, set to release August 2022. SUBURBAN WILDLIFE, Imogen’s debut feature film, was runner-up for the Audience Award at Sydney Film Festival 2019, premiered internationally at festivals including Taormina Film Festival and Cinequest Film Festival, and she was honoured as the Debut Director for the London Australian Film Festival in 2019. More information at www.imogenmccluskey.com

the creative team

Producing

  • Chris Crema is a producer with dual US/UK citizenship. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in 2017, Crema has an extensive background in acting, appearing in his first feature film at the age of 13. He has also studied at Drama Centre London, Second City Chicago and Groundlings. Before becoming a current Producing Fellow at the American Film Institute, Chris worked for Daniel Petrie Jr.’s Enderby Entertainment in the production and development department since 2017. At Enderby, Chris gained valuable experience developing projects for both Film and Television, whilst also gaining practical skills working on a variety of film sets across the globe.

  • Austin Chen is a producer from Fort Lee, New Jersey. He is currently a Producing Fellow at AFI and graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2019 with a major in Film & Television and a minor in computer science. He most recently interned in the Narrative Film department for Ryan Coogler’s production company Proximity Media. He has experience in development and talent management having worked as a Junior Assistant at Scott Rudin Productions in addition to interning at Untitled Entertainment and MANAGE-MENT.

Cinematography

  • Luísa was born and raised in Brazil and studied Cinematography at the Escuela Superior de Cinema y Audiovisual de la Cataluña (ESCAC) in Barcelona. She has worked as the Director of Photography of numerous short films, commercials and feature-length documentaries, being the first woman cinematographer to shoot a tv show - Women Talks (2021) - from TV Globo, the biggest broadcast TV in Brazil. More info at: www.luisadale.com

Composer

  • Isha Ram Das is an experimental sound artist and composer who creates immersive installations, performances and recordings. His work explores how sound reflects and shapes our culture and time. He has worked with various institutions and festivals around the world, such as Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide, Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Sydney Opera House, University of Queensland Art Museum in Brisbane, Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, MONA FOMA in Launceston, Melbourne International Jazz Festival and Brunswick Music Festival in Melbourne. He also works with his sibling Sancintya Mohini Simpson on interdisciplinary projects and serves as the musical director for Untitled (Death Song) by Megan Cope. His musical releases include Lithograph, Parable (2021) and A Leaf, a Flower (2019), which was featured on the ABC television series Mystery Road.

Production Design

  • Mehdi Bennani is a production designer from Morocco who is based in Los Angeles. He studied at the University of Southern California for his Bachelor's degree in science in Architecture. He studied production design for his Master's degree at the American Film Institute, where he designed his first thesis film END OF DAY, and co-designed his second, IN WONDERLAND.

    Mehdi has always been interested in telling stories about minorities, and social and racial injustice. Before and during his AFI program, he has worked on multiple BIPOC and diversity short films, some of which have been selected to screen in numerous festivals including Cannes.

Editing

  • Yumeng “Judith” Zhu is a Chinese film and TV editor, based in Los Angeles. She holds her BFA in Creative Media from City University of Hong Kong. Working as an editor in China after graduation, she edited various short films, documentaries, experimental films, and served as an assistant editor for two highly-rated reality shows.

any and all contributions welcome

RAIN relies on donations to reach full funding for production.

AFI is a nonprofit institution, and any in-kind donations may be tax deductible for the full retail value. Please donate today, to help support the next generation of filmmakers.

background photos: todd hido, homes at night,