From Omeleto.
A teenager escapes.
JUST A GIRL is used with permission from Kieran Freemantle. Learn more at https://instagram.com/justagirlshortfilm.
A mysterious plague has eradicated many of the world’s women, and those that survived are now heavily regulated, either sold, kept or exploited for various purposes. Katie is a teenager who is being prepped for reproduction. But just as she’s earmarked to start the ominous program, she manages to escape the government-run facility, running out into the Shetland Isles.
Katie is discovered and cared for by a kindly farmer, Jack, who has become a hermit after losing his wife and daughter. Knowing Katie must escape, Jack agrees to help smuggle her to the mainland. But the distance they must travel is far, giving the government plenty of room to catch up.
Directed and written by Kieran Freemantle, this short sci-fi thriller charts the struggles of a young woman to find her way back into the world after being locked up in a government-run facility for breeding. The set-up is pointedly political, but the narrative is character-driven at heart — not about resistance or grand rebellion, but the fragile bond forged between two broken individuals.
After the pulse-pounding escape that opens the film, the heart of the story is Jack and Katie’s coming together, as the pair share a meal at the table. We learn more about the world, but more crucially, we learn more about the characters, who are sizing one another up. As Jack, actor Olly Bassi plays a father’s innate warmth and generosity, putting Katie at ease and assuring her she’s in no danger from him. Katie herself, played by actor Lydia Fitzwilliams, is angry at what she’s been through. Fitzwilliams portrays her as an ordinary teenager, vulnerable and desperate for freedom and family. Jack sees the daughter that he lost in Katie, and he agrees to help her flee.
The storytelling blends elements of many popular dystopian narratives — there are elements of A HANDMAID’S TALE in how the role of women has been reduced to functions and commodities, and the surrogate father-daughter bond echoes THE LAST OF US. But there’s a distinctly British slant to the film, thanks to the raw, striking rural setting, which is captured in textured, sparse cinematography. The rugged beauty of the land, combined with Jack’s warmly lived-in home, adds an element of isolation that can feel like either a hushed shelter from danger — or perilously far from safety. This tension is deftly exploited as Jack and Katie race through the countryside and come up against the long arm of the government, where they must make desperate decisions.
The premise of JUST A GIRL may be sci-fi or dystopian, and its world-building could be nicely expanded upon with a longer narrative length and the higher budgets it commands. But with its focus on a grieving father and a daughter who wants to get back to the family she’s been kept away from, the drama and emotional stakes are recognizably and relatably human. This resolutely character-centered slant reminds us that there is always hope if people still carry the power of connection and courage, even in a world that’s falling apart.
