The unexpected meeting between a man and his faith – this should be the summed up description of ‘Mea Culpa’, a short film that can really make you question your life and your life’s choices. A man enters a hotel lobby and meets the receptionist there. She then takes him to the bar where he is awaited for a meeting, but things are not what he would expect. In fact, the meeting is the afterlife, and the man’s soul is facing the lord of the underworld.

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Jason Fité is the master at skillfully transforming a normal story into a piece of art that can easily blow your mind. In ‘Mea Culpa’ he takes the narrative to another level by setting it in the purgatory, and better yet, he makes it look really mundane and classy. The bar here plays the role of the silent observatory – it can hear your confession, but it will not interfere with your story. It is interesting that Jason Fité picked a bar to be the gate to the afterlife, as we know it to be a great place to be alone with our thoughts, with a glass of whiskey on the side. We may call it the redemption booth for the nonbelievers.

 

Paul Dewdney is incredible…again! We remember him from ‘The Inquiry’, a short movie that got him the ‘Best Actor’ award at our festival. Here, in ‘Mea Culpa’, Dewdney plays the role of a bad man who is willing to pay his dues and make things right for once in his life, but it is way too late. Paul Dewdney has the innocence of the old wolf taking all the blame of the heard on his back. Though he is not concerned that much of his sentence, he surely thinks about the ones he left behind.

 

‘Mea Culpa’ has an open ending, as the story could easily continue after the elevator doors unveil the truth in front of Mr. Castlin. 

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Written by Vlad A. G