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The Eleven O'Clock

Dir. Derin Seale

Doctor Harry Phillips wants to be called “Doctor,” not “Sir.” Phillips, a psychiatrist, seems uneasy, unsettled. He keeps tugging at his desk drawer, but it won’t open. He has a secretary temp, but just for the day, who tells him his eleven o’clock appointment is with a man who “suffers grandiose delusions, both occupational and reverential”—what’s more, he believes that he is a psychiatrist. Enter Dr. Nathan Kline, the patient, as he takes over his own appointment as the doctor. Cue a frustrating back and forth interaction as the two “doctors” compete to diagnose each other.

“The Eleven O’Clock” is as comical as it is painful to watch. The frustration between the two is almost too palpable, thanks to the skillful acting of Josh Lawson and Damon Herriman, who play Kline and Phillips, respectively. They both play sharp and convincing psychiatrists, maximizing a plot that risks being repetitive and exhausting. The film’s success is also largely due to Josh Lawson’s smart script and its play on words, which peaks during an attempted word association test.

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DeKalb Elementary

Dir. Reed Van Dyk

“DeKalb Elementary” is a fictional retelling of what could have been Atlanta’s mirror image of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. In both situations, a 20-year-old, mentally ill white man opens fire with an assault rifle into an elementary school. The crucial difference—and what stopped the August 2013 Atlanta shooting from turning deadly—is one brave woman’s compassion for the man who could have killed her. Tarra Riggs is superb as Cassandra Rice, the school’s receptionist, who mediates between the shooter and a 911 responder—composed, while she waits alone in a room with a man who will either turn himself in or go on a killing spree. The film rings eerily true, especially in the wake of the recent, heartbreaking shooting in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people.

The short film’s brilliance lies in its realism. With the screenplay dialogue taken directly from the transcript of the actual 911 call made, the film balances the terrifying anxiety of the situation at hand and the calm required of both Rice and the audience to see it through to the end—all in a mere 21 minutes. Van Dyk makes sure to immortalize one woman’s story—one that undoubtedly would have gradually disappeared into history—in an uncanny short that speaks to the times we live in. A hero, Rice saves the day with her compassion. “It’s a good thing you’re giving up. We all go through something in life, OK?” she comforts the gunman, as he prepares to turn himself in. We can only hope to be as brave as Rice if and when that “something” comes.

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My Nephew Emmett

Dir. Kevin Wilson Jr.