DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Way back in September of 2019, I shot what I thought was going to be a short film about a lonely guy in tight pants who finds the community that he has been looking for in the outcasts who reside on the outskirts of his town. It was admittedly a kind of half-baked idea, as much an excuse to experiment with dance choreography and play with a fog machine as it was any kind of cohesive film idea.
In early March of 2020, I was at work on the edit of this misguided little film. I remember sitting in Flight Coffee Shop in Dover, NH, happily clicking away on my laptop, packed in with a whole bunch of people doing much the same. It was one of those “don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone” moments. We all know what happened in early March of 2020, and I look back on that mundane afternoon at Flight with the same intense nostalgia that I formerly reserved for my sweetest childhood memories.
The pandemic took over our lives and it wasn’t until the fall of 2020 that I was able to return to the film. The original idea no longer seemed relevant or interesting to me, but there was something about all of that fog footage and those people gathered together in movement outside that felt like imagery for a new movie idea. So I set to work on a new film idea, one that attempted to capture the feel of these strange, lonely, sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful pandemic times.
The result is “This Fog.” Thanks for watching.
— Jeff Stern
What if this is the other side?
People talk about this pandemic year as a bridge or a pause. Something we just have to get through, to get to the other side. But what if this is the other side? This Fog is a lyrical short film shot on the harbor islands of New Hampshire’s seacoast that attempts to capture our strange and lonely, sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful pandemic lives.
SCREENINGS
APRIL 16-25 — Cadence Video Poetry Festival
MAY 6-16 — Independent Film Fest Boston
JULY 9-11 — Walla Walla Movie Crush
JULY 31 - AUGUST 7 — Woods Hole Film Festival
AUGUST 19-20 — Garner Outdoor Shorts Film Fest
SEPT. 16-25 — South Dakota Film Fest
OCTOBER 21-30 — Monadnock International Film Fest
