Sunscreen Film Festival 2009

The South, 1958. An off-duty police officer is driving home the family babysitter when she gives him a disturbing ultimatum.Starring Joel McKinnon Miller (HBO’s Big Love, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Truman Show) and Julie McNiven (AMC’s Mad Men), Scott W Lee’s noir short ‘Bluff Point’ is a twisted tale from a wholesome era. When the police officer’s attractive teenaged babysitter makes a startling confession, what started as an innocent rural drive becomes a journey to the dark heart of desire, madness and human frailty. Forced to confront his most secret longings, the man faces an impossible dilemma in which the only way he can save his family is to betray it. Directed by award-winning music video director Scott W Lee and based on the screenplay by British playwright Kieron Barry, ‘Bluff Point’ was shot by Roger Deakins protégé Tony Corapi entirely on the new Red One camera. Lush cinematography of the Tennessee countryside and lovingly recreated period detail serve as ironic counterpoint to the film’s unflinching psychological narrative; from its small-scale, domestic beginnings, ‘Bluff Point’ soon unfolds to become a headlong rush into the abyss. Featuring sparse storytelling, fractured dialogue and two vivid, haunting central performances, ‘Bluff Point’ is a thriller that combines the claustrophobic intensity of Hitchcock with the unfathomable moral core of Graham Greene.Brutal, dazzling and totally unforgettable, ‘Bluff Point’ is a searing examination of love, lust and obsession.