ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
On a back-to-school shopping trip, an angsty tween struggling with her body image attempts to drive away her eccentric aunt, who’s making her life more miserable.

SYNOPSIS
CHOCK FULL UNTIL EMPTY is a comedic coming-of-age drama that explores the ways in which we cope with and avoid feeling challenging emotions by abusing substances like food and alcohol.

The film follows twelve-year-old Bea, a creative and strong-willed Nigerian-American girl who struggles with body image and self-worth as she deals with the sudden shift of the status quo after her estranged aunt PHUMIE comes to live with her family. An eccentric, failed musician who hails from the Midwest, Phumie becomes a caregiver for Bea and her younger sister while their parents are mostly absent, working many hours.

Right away, we see that Bea feels bitter that Phumie is staying in her bedroom, which is ripe fuel for Bea’s grievance against Phumie. In fact, Bea sees Phumie as a formidable foe who has other strikes against her, including monitoring Bea’s weight and bossing her around. On a late summer day, Phumie accompanies Bea and Opal on a back-to-school shopping trip, where tensions rise as Bea resists Phumie’s authority and Phumie makes several missteps as a new caregiver. Bea fantasizes and plots ways to drive Phumie away with the help of her malevolent Doppelgänger, an imagined manifestation of the thoughts and emotions Bea suppresses.

Underscoring the revenge plot are moments that show Bea struggling with her body image and self-worth, oftentimes turning to food to cope and ultimately, numb. In parallel, we also learn that Phumie is struggling herself as she hides a dependency on alcohol, which has serious consequences for how she shows up as a caretaker. Ultimately, CHOCK FULL UNTIL EMPTY shows that no matter how much we try to fill the holes that haunt us, we must face ourselves eventually.

PROJECT TYPE Narrative Short

DIRECTOR Efe Kabba
PRODUCER Efe Kabba, Elle Kurata, Nanda Saboia
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Erika Alexander, Ben Arnon, Nathaniel Freyman

The Film Collaborative (TFC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing programs and services for independent filmmakers. TFC’s federal tax ID number is 32-0295081. All donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

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