Fourteen year old Abi, a social outsider whose perspective of the world around her is contained within the four walls of her London family home, is faced with crossing the distance between her assumptions and reality. Abi lives with her mother and older brother in a converted London apartment. A social outsider who struggles at school, she spends most of her time in own world, making up stories about the obese and imposing middle-aged woman Rita who lives with her weedy husband in the apartment upstairs. Abi’s imagination is provoked by banging and thumping noises which drift through the ceiling from Rita’s apartment. Abi is convinced that the beastly woman is beating up her helpless husband. She entertains her mother and brother with silly stories about the “villain” upstairs, and the warmth of their laughter makes her fear of school and the outside world melt away. But beneath her teasing and joking, Abi is terrified of Rita. When Abi’s mother instructs her to deliver a message to the apartment upstairs, Abi reluctantly approaches Rita’s door. There, in the lair of the villain, she finds that reality is far from her assumptions and comes to face to face with her naive and overactive imagination.
director: Daina O. Pusić
producer: Gabriel Stavenhagen, London Film School
Dates:
Saturday, 27. July in 22:30, Cinema Valli
