Shot on iPhone 13 Pro Max. 

When Robert's best friend tricks him into speed dating, he never expected to run into the guy that ghosted him six months ago after an unforgettable 24 hours together. Questioning his worth in the gay dating scene, he hasn’t dated since he met Brian. Convinced there is something wrong with him Robert sits through an evening of uncomfortable speed dates while he waits anxiously for his moment to understand why Brian never called.

Director's Statement

Ghosted started out as a single speed dating scene written in 2018 around mistaken identity. That scene was written for an Indian acting student who couldn’t find a scene that she saw herself in. The scene wasn’t used, though Danny saw potential to develop this into a short film, get creative and develop a character hi could play. For years he procrastinated on its evolution having not connected to a heterosexual story line.

Then one day, while writing in his journal following a number of disastrous dates the light bulb flickered and the development of an LGBT storyline flowed onto the pages.

We have all experienced being ghosted in one way or another. Be that through dating or a friend that has just decided to not return your calls. What many of us do in this situation though is catastrophise and develop a story around why we never heard from that person again. The mental health effects of being on the receiving end of these actions can be very challenging.

This story is to show that, there can always be two sides to every situation and jumping to conclusions can lead to pain that could have been avoided if we just didn’t create that story from the event.

What started as a way to create part for the himself, Ghosted it quickly evolved into a project with a focus on providing opportunity to as many LGBTQIA+ people as possible. In the end, from a cast of 22 and a crew of 8, 28 people are all members of the community and have been excited to see themselves represented on screen.

Director's Bio

Ever since I can remember, telling stories has been a part of me, though I have always been the teller of someone else’s story. Acting and performing has been a passion since I first danced to Thriller on stage at school in year 4.

As an actor, we work hard to develop our acting abilities and presence to on screen and then wait to get be invited to audition. I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands, it was time to develop my own story.

An earlier version of the final scene of Ghosted is where the journey began for me and having found myself back on the dating scene after the break down of an 8 year relationship... ghosting had become very front and centre in my dating life.

This film is both my writing and directing debut and I think I set myself a massive challenge to tell this story in such a short space of time while also taking on the lead role of Robert. A lot of people have put a lot of trust in me and I couldn’t be more proud of what we have all managed to achieve.

Having attended festivals such as Smart Fone Flick Fest in the past, I was very inspired by what could be created using a mobile phone. I have seen some amazing works so I was very passionate about shooting the entire short using an iPhone 13 Pro Max. While it wasn’t without its challenges, (a phone with larger data capacity is advisable) it meant that we were able to be very agile in how we shot the film.

My goal now, is to turn Ghosted into a series.