Florida Premiere

Shown with Thou Shalt Not Hate

After a young man is fired from his job as a result of his casually offensive behavior, he finds the perfect people to blame: minorities. Newly inspired by the white supremacist ideology of the "Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, we watch as he sinks into the darkest pits of the internet and takes the ideas he finds there as his own...

Serena Ryen and Ethan Itzkow collaborated previously on "CASHED," which is streaming now on Amazon Prime, screened at over a dozen festivals around the United States and won awards like the Audience Choice Award with HollyShorts Monthly Screenings at the historic TCL Chinese Theater; Best Dramatic Short, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography at CICHFF; and a nomination for Best Comedy Short with the Queens World Film Festival.

Itzkow and Ryen are also both regularly-working actors. Itzkow can be seen on the hit Netflix original series "YOU" starring Penn Badgley and Ryen has worked opposite stars like Ron Rifkin and Ashley Williams. Together, they traveled the world for two years performing on stage and writing "High Score."

They are deeply grateful to the incredible team of artists who have made this film possible.

Director Statement

In April 2019, while we were in Los Angeles preparing to attend a screening of our film “CASHED," the Poway synagogue shooting occurred not far away. It left us shaken and thinking of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting exactly six months before, and of countless others in recent years.

The unlawful detainment of Central American people attempting to immigrate to the U.S. also weighed on us profoundly. We couldn’t shake the feeling that the inhumane conditions at our southern border’s detention centers seemed connected to the growing wave of white supremacist violence. It lit a fire inside us, an aching need to do more to better our world (or, like we say in the Jewish tradition, to contribute to the effort of Tikkun Olam).

“High Score” was born of our need to drag the violent hatred fermenting in the shadows of our media into the light, to expose the interconnectedness of these conspiracy theories and the dangers they pose to human life, and to reveal the almost supernatural power of the internet to amplify extremist ideologies and radicalize people toward violent actions. We hope you’ll join our fight to end white supremacy and racial violence.

- Serena Ryen & Ethan Itzkow