Gone is yet another film from the Moonshine Pictures team that’s making the festival rounds this year. Last month, The Tale of the Daughter played the HollyShorts Film Festival (you can read our interview with directors Savannah Sivert and Taylor Hinds here). This time around, The Tale of the Daughter’s editor Christopher Piñero is at the helm. Indeed, Piñero is the writer, director, editor, and producer of Gone, which stars his real-life partner Jazlyn Yoder as Renee, a young woman dealing with the inevitability of her sick mother’s death. The psychological thriller played at at the 22nd annual Flickers’ Vortex Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Film Festival in association with the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival.
The seamlessness with which Piñero combines the family drama with the psychological thriller / horror is nothing short of exemplary craftspersonship. His script cuts through, with utmost devastation, to the heart of unresolved grief and the (literally) haunting effects it has on a person. It’s rightfully actors’ gasoline for Yoder, who turns in a fuller-throttled and darker, though no less amazing, performance here than in The Tale of the Daughter. As much as you want to disagree or even dislike her for initially turning her back on her dying mother, Yoder is undeniably magnetic and you can’t help but be drawn into Renee’s world because of her.
What’s most remarkable about Gone, however, is its cinematography. On the one hand, Piñero allows the camera to linger on the shadows, creating hair-raising silences that take hold of your entire being and make you question whether or not there’s something (or someone) in the room with you. And, on the other hand, Piñero isn’t afraid to allow everything to unravel as Renee does. The beach scene towards the end of the film, in fact, offers one of the most visually arresting sequences you’ll see in a short film this year.
In our email interview below, Piñero talks about his deeply personal connection to Gone’s subject matter, how films forged his creative DNA, and the collaborative relationship he holds with Yoder. There’s a warmness and openness to Piñero’s answers that make it instantly clear how much of his heart went into this film. He’s definitely one to watch out for.
Would you take us back to where filmmaking all started for you? How did you first discover that making movies was something you wanted to do?
For as long as I can remember, movies have been embedded into my fabric; my Mom once took me out of school so we could see the first showing of ‘Twister’ for her birthday! My family are big movie buffs so when I was a kid and saw actors on the screen, I assumed they were the ones who made the movies. When I graduated high school, I decided to train as an actor at the NYFA in NYC. While I learned so much valuable knowledge there that I still carry with me as a director, I realized acting wasn’t for me. And then when I had the opportunity to direct a scene for a friend of mine, it was game over. I’ve had the bug ever since.
What I loved and found most interesting about Gone was how you sort of cross-pollinate the domestic/family drama with the psychological thriller, which I think is very poignant considering how grief and loss manifest themselves in myriad and bizarre–and oftentimes dark–ways. Where did the idea for Gone come from? How did you go about approaching the dark psychology of Renee’s experience?
That was important to me from the beginning, to make these A and B storylines which you initially think are separate, come together at the end in a way that feels surprising, yet inevitable. Let me back up a bit: I had no plans to do a short last year, but in the summer of 2020 my grandmother passed away and that changed everything for me. I experienced anticipatory grief for the first time. It’s not something that you hear about a lot, but basically, you begin the mourning/grieving process before the person has actually passed on. My Grandma had been fighting this fight for a long time. As summer approached, I began to see the Grandma I had always known, begin to slip away. Every time I saw her, a piece of her had already gone. I mourned a piece of her every single time I left. I remember two days before she passed, I went to see her and she was completely unrecognizable to me. I immediately walked out of the room, like Renee does in the film, but after collecting myself in the living room, I went back in to be with her. But I had the thought, what if I didn’t go back into that room with her, what if I kept going out the front door? How would that grieving process look, how would it haunt me?
You’re wearing a lot of creative hats on this one, which actually isn’t a new experience for you. How do you generally go about balancing writing, directing, producing, and editing duties on each of your projects? Having done so on several projects before Gone, did that make this production relatively easier to manage?
This production was one of the most challenging films I’ve made because of the subject matter. We actually shot at the location where my Grandma passed away. With company moves, a set piece on the beach and only three days to shoot, our producers and crew did a hell of a job. Throughout pre-production of Gone, I was editing the other short film we did last year, The Tale of the Daughter, which our production company also produced. It was relatively easy to assemble the crew since a lot of them were people I’d worked with in the past or were rollovers from our other film. As far as the editing process for Gone — that was a whole other journey for me. My Father passed away from Covid as I was finishing the first cut. Working on a project based in grief while being served a fresh helping of it, was extremely tough, but I do believe I was forced to confront and live in that pain completely and maybe it was a blessing in some way.
Gone reunites you with many creatives you’ve worked with before. Jazlyn Yoder, in particular, is once again the star of your film, which makes sense because she is amazing. What’s your working / collaborative relationship like? Was there anything new that you learned either from or about each other while making Gone?
With Jazlyn, I don’t make/finish any films without her nod of approval. Aside from being my creative partner, she is also my partner in life, and she’s lived those dark days with me when my Grandma was sick. She knew that pain better than anyone. It’s great working with her, we discuss things a lot during the script phase and rehearsal, so when it comes time to shoot, I don’t really have to say much other than some occasional motivation. I guess what I learned about her on this one is how truly fearless she is. The beach scene was immensely challenging because of how cold it was, and she had to keep getting back in that frigid water while maintaining the emotional tenor of the scene. Better her than me haha.
Gone will be playing at the upcoming Flickers’ Vortex Film Festival, which is dedicated to all things horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. What does it mean for you to have it play here?
I premiered at their main festival, Flickers Rhode Island, in August and it was an honor to be there, just as it is to be selected for Vortex. There are so many other amazing genre films screening here, which you can probably assume, is what I also gravitate towards as an audience member. I am excited to watch as many as I can.
What’s next for you? And where can our readers follow you and your work?
Our production company, Moonshine Pictures, is always in development on our slate of projects, and I’m working on my next feature, Rosemont Forest. It’s a coming-of-age horror thriller, set on Halloween in the mid-nineties. We’re in the process of shopping that around and fingers crossed, we’ll be shooting that next year. And to follow my work, I’m on instagram @clpinero and my Youtube channel @ChristopherPiñero features my past shorts and projects. Thanks for the chat, I appreciate it!
