"A surreal tale of fish eaten and innocence lost..." is how screenwriter Marina Shron describes this award-winning short of a boy (Joanna Sinclair as a scruffy street kid whose purposefully androgynous performance and tomboyish looks suggest the character's gender isn't quite so certain) recalling a brief affair with a girl (Laurena Allen, looking like a 1930s moppet in a kewpie doll dress and hair bow). Told in first-person with a mix of idealism and romantic exaggeration (this does, after all, begin with a literal tightrope walk to a lover's window), these are impressions recalled with the innocence of a first love and the hindsight of a broken heart. Director Vivian Sorenson offers imagery to match the narration, transforming meal into a snow globe where clouds of sifted flour fall as snowflakes. THE SILENT LOVE OF THE FISH won the Best Short Film at award at the 2002 Hamptons International Film Festival. - Sean Axmaker
