BIRTHDAY GIRL is the student film of the young filmmaker Zachary Edward Zebrowitz. From the first scene you can already tell this is going to be the melodramatic trip of a young girl on the day of her birthday.
Zebrowitz is very playful in his lighting techniques, decides to capture the emotion via pink and grey light depending on the psychology of Ellie.
Although you can tell this film was made with a good heart and love for the medium. Zebrowitz falls in the trap of the femme fatale auto catastrophic teenager cliché. The film has some very good pacing and does not play safe for a student film. The directing is solid but the acting leaves more to be desired. The cinematography looks very pretty with literally candy on the screen and as expected for student films, sound design is treated as a secondary attribute.
In the end this is a very hopeful first step for the you filmmaker. We cannot wait to see what he is preparing next. Overall BIRTHDAY GIRL is a very optimistic first attempt on filmmaking.
For the record the poster art looks incredible, has something Homeric.