Ouzo and Blackcurrant
Best friends from school, it seems like no time has passed for Esta and Jeanie, arranging to meet on the old lane by the fields, a country walk on a summer day with everything right under the blue sky and the trees, the very presence of each other making them laugh as they cross fields full of memories, revisiting their old haunts and talking of the old days of drinking Ouzo and blackcurrant.
Except something isn’t right; Jeanie knows something Esta doesn’t about Sal who used to be Esta’s best friend before she got replaced by Jeanie and left behind; while they grew up and changed and took on adult roles and responsibilites Sal didn’t, forever caught in that high school moment, a ghost hanging over the fields and a now a shadow over Esta who question whether she might have been to blame.
A short film of joy, regret and the mistakes which inform the present, in only a few minutes Ouzo and Blackcurrant creates a complete picture of life as it was how it is now and how swiftly that warm contentment can vanish through the talent of Nat Luurtsema who writes and directs with clarity and efficiency and stars Cherrelle Skeete and Sara Huxley, selling the friendship, grief and fear of Esta and Jeanie with complete conviction.
The tone shifting as the sun sets, what starts as a light character piece shifts to supernatural dread, overlaying the apparent safety of the pastoral setting with a layer of new technology, the facial recognition software of Jeanie’s smartphone noticing something in the shifting leaves and branches which they cannot see, a presence which they have perhaps invoked by their conversation which has been waiting in the fields to be remembered.
Ouzo and Blackcurrant will be available on the Arrow platform from Friday 10th May
