Variety hosted a panel for the short film “The Writer,” with directors Austin Glasser and Luke Madenwald on Dec. 3 This conversation, moderated by Variety‘s chief film critic Peter DeBruge, was part of FYC Streaming Room, presented by Red Dresser Productions.
“Self-isolated, a writer navigates the pressure of the film industry, family, and the looming presence of his father, only to lose himself to his ambitions,” reads the short film’s logline.
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“I wanted to tell a story about a writer…having to reconcile with the generational trauma of his father,” Madenwald said. “There’s external struggles mixed with internal struggles all coming together in a culmination within a cabin, which you could interpret as our lead actor’s mind.”
Glasser, who has had four generations of his family work in different spaces of the entertainment industry, from acting to music to production, said this project is, in many ways, an homage to his father and the world he grew up in.
He added that seeing the adversity of the industry first-hand inspired elements of the short film, which he felt, would resonate with many audiences.
“Sometimes you could be on a hit show and then kind of just disappear after that,” Glasser said. “After 30 years of watching my dad work through this, there’s a lot of talented people who just couldn’t hold up.”
The short film’s protagonist, Madenwald said, is an artist navigating the space between commercial success and self-fulfillment throughout his narrative arc.
“This is a depiction of someone who has the opportunity to continue, but what do you give up to keep this?” Glasser said.
Both Glasser and Madenwald shared a desire to center the impact of familial relationships in “The Writer.” Specifically honing in on the father-son dynamic in the short film, Madenwald explained, was paramount.
“What I clung onto at heart was honing in on the relationship between the father and son,” Madenwald said. “You have to give up what you want for what you need because…where does your family lie between that struggle?”