(Published in FF2 Media, June 12, 2017)
Now in its 20th year, the Los Angeles-based film festival, Dances With Films (DWF), lives up to its words of conception: a festival where ‘who you know’ doesn’t matter, but the quality of your work does. First-time writer and director of a narrative short film, German-born Monika Petrillo jumps into the filmmaking waters with Wink. Her film’s topic sounds a bit unusual—a frustrated and lonely suburban housewife and a goldfish—but Petrillo laughingly said, “How can you go wrong with a beautiful woman and a goldfish?”
The inspiration behind not only this film, but Petrillo’s decision to become a filmmaker was her godmother, Li Erben. Erben’s late husband, Russian-born French film director Victor Vicas had written a story about a blonde, a winking goldfish and a bath. After hearing that description, Petrillo could see the whole film. “I came home…and before I knew it, I had written the whole 12-page script.”