WILLIAM B. DAVIS

PACKING UP (Short Film - 2004)

 

Director:

William B. Davis

 

Writer:
William B. Davis

 

Stars:
William B. Davis, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Garry Davey and Jonathan Holmes.

Music performed by Ben Heppner.

 

Original Score:
John Mills-Cockell

 

Packing Up was a KickStart film and was screened by Bravo on Bravofact in addition to its festival circuit.

 

To purchase a signed copy of Packing Up, go to the shop.

 

Plot:
Packing up his office on his last day, a university professor discovers that retirement may not be what he had hoped.

 

A poignant glimpse of the fragility of meaning in human existence. Professor Thomas Jenkins is looking forward to retirement and packing up his office on his last day of work. His wife phones and asks him to book the cruise she has reserved. Before he can do so, he is visited first by an attractive graduate student, then by his colleague and office partner, and finally by his brilliant, young replacement. These simple events transform his sense of himself and his future.

 

Director's Notes:
Retirement is a crisis that faces us all one day. Even when one denies that one is retiring it is thrust upon us. When I sold my school, people called it a retirement party. But I sold the school so I would have time to make films. At age 66, I stood at the edge of my own existential void. This film is a personal statement and a testament to my determination to keep on living.

 

I have been supported by a wonderful cast, two of whom lived the relationships described in the story. Sarah-Jane Redmond was my student and Garry Davey was my teaching colleague. They brought a wonderful personal connection to the film.

 

Haunting the background is the soaring voice of Ben Heppner, the Canadian tenor whose own voice problems for a time challenged his future and threatened him with early retirement.

 

Underlying the story is the philosophy that there is no meaning in life. We develop our own infrastructure of meaning based on work, relationships, family, or whatever is important to us. Human meaning is not intrinsic but self-created. If one loses one's infrastructure of meaning, for whatever reason, one stands on the edge of an existential void.