By: Cara Derose, Copy Editor
With the right director, a low-budget film can pack a big punch. Haley Depner, a 22-year-old biology major and aspiring filmmaker at USM, proved that last Tuesday, Nov. 7, when her short film “I’ll Be Your Man” was screened at the juried Nasty Women Film Event in New Haven, Connecticut.
“I’ll Be Your Man” was one of 17 films selected for the event, which took place at an old house near Yale University. According to Depner, around 70 people attended the reception and opening screening on Nov. 7. The 17 films were selected from a pool of undergraduate and graduate New England student talent, and each one contended with the topics of racism, sexism and homophobia.
A fleeting minute and thirteen seconds, “I’ll Be Your Man”‘s brevity allows its story to pierce like an arrow without the viewer ever feeling like a target. Rather than a lecture about prejudice, the film is a concise expression of a sadness we all know. Depner stars as the film’s unnamed leading woman, who manipulates her appearance in order to win the girl who’d rather have a leading man. The lead binds her breasts. To the tune of Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E,” she cuts her hair short, gels it down. She dons a fitted smoky brown jacket. With these few adjustments, she transforms from a smitten college student into a suave 1950s playboy.
The spitting image of classic Hollywood masculinity, and a lilac bouquet in hand, she knocks at a door, which the girl, Danielle (played by former USM student Kristina McDurmott), opens. Danielle is unimpressed and deems the effort “childish.”
“You said you needed a man!” the lead says. “Why can’t I be your man?”
Nothing penetrates more than a tale of unrequited love, especially in a film made for no more than three dollars. Other filmmakers at the Nasty Women Film Event had bigger budgets and seasoned actors. But Depner had something equally personal and universal to say, based on a love lost during her childhood at a homeschool co-op in New Hampshire. An assignment for a visual storytelling class last fall was an opportune excuse to make this memory into screen-worthy art.
“There was this girl in high school I liked, but people were making really nasty comments to her about how she was nice to me,” Depner said. “They were saying she shouldn’t be nice to gay people, people who were going to hell.”
These comments, according to Depner, ultimately prevented them from having a relationship.
“She couldn’t handle the comments, so it didn’t work out,” she said.
The memory inspired Depner’s fascination with the idea of people changing themselves to become desirable to another person.
“I’ll Be Your Man” is “a film about cross-dressing to be what another person wants you to be,” she said.
Depner’s interest in film started when she was 11 years old. She made a “little video” with her mother for a video contest, the winner of which would be rewarded a trip to Australia.
“I didn’t win,” she said, “but I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed the process of creating art.”
Then, after pinching pennies and saving Christmas and birthday money, a 13-year-old Depner had invested in her first camera, a Canon Powershot SX10 IS, to replace an older camera that had reached the point where it was no longer capturing audio. The Canon Power shot is one of the cameras she still uses today.
While Depner is committed to filmmaking as a hobby, she intends to focus on getting a job as a museum curator in the future. Yet she wouldn’t rule out filmmaking as a career altogether.
“I’ve considered going into science and educational filmmaking as well,” she said.