Synopsis
1962. Ten-year-old Susan craves playing in the model car races organized by the Pitts brothers, but the track is a boys-only world. Clinging to her desires; she secretly takes a 1:18 scale car from her father’s collection to break into the game.
As the race begins, Susan’s imagination transforms the scale track into a surrealistic world of color and fantasy. But when she loses her father’s car to William, the cruel truth of the domestic violence she has endured is revealed, forcing Susan and her mother to flee their home. William is left carrying the guilt of believing he caused Susan’s trauma.
Sixty years later, Susan is a retired car racing champion and William is terminally ill. Haunted by the past, he seeks her out to return the model car and confess his guilt. Their reunion brings two childhood memories into the present, revealing how Sunan´s loss ultimately shaped her life, while William's stolen victory has burdened him.
Through the collision of childhood imagination, memory, and reality, Speedway explores resilience, guilt, and the unexpected ways a single moment can shape a lifetime.
About the project
SpeedWay is a short film that blends grounded realism with heightened imagination to explore memory, resilience, and redemption. Set in present day California, the story begins with a restrained visual approach as William, now in his 70s and terminally ill, arrives at Susan’s home seeking closure. These contemporary scenes rely on natural light, still compositions, and minimal camera movement to foreground performance and emotional authenticity.
In contrast, Susan’s childhood memories unfold in the hazy summer of the 1960s through a warm, golden visual palette inspired by Moonrise Kingdom. Handheld cinematography, textured grain, and sun flares evoke the vitality and freedom of childhood. The children’s homemade racetrack, built from everyday materials such as wood scraps, plastic tubing, rope, paint, and tape, becomes a central visual metaphor. Its naïf markings transform an ordinary playground into a space of invention, agency, and survival.
As the race begins, the film introduces an innovative hybrid language combining live action with hand drawn animation. Susan’s imagination comes alive through candy colored skies, drifting sea stars, guiding fish, and a luminous rainbow path. These animated elements are layered seamlessly into the physical environment, inviting the audience to experience the story from within Susan’s emotional perspective and deepening viewer engagement through visual immersion.
This sense of wonder is counterbalanced by moments of intrusion and tension. A hyper real wolf appears at the edges of Susan’s fantasy, embodying the threat of her father’s violence. As she approaches the tunnel leading to the finish line, memory and fear converge through rapid flashes, sharp contrasts, and distorted imagery inspired by Seconds. These moments visually articulate trauma without explicit depiction, making the film accessible while emotionally resonant.
Tonally, Speedway draws inspiration from Matilda (1996), blending whimsy with darkness to reach both younger and adult audiences. Beneath its playful surface, the film addresses domestic violence, gender inequality, and the lasting impact of silence. By positioning imagination as an act of resistance, Speedway delivers a hopeful and empowering message about the courage it takes to confront the past and move forward.
WHY WE ARE MAKING THIS FILM
SpeedWay is a short about accountability, resilience, and the quiet strength required to claim one’s life after trauma. While rooted in a child’s racing game, the film deeply explores themes of gender inequality, domestic violence, and the long shadow of childhood choices.
As a Colombian filmmaker director working at this moment in my career, I strongly believe in the responsibility of telling stories that challenge silence and expand representation. To realize this vision at the level it deserves, I am seeking partners who value both its artistic integrity and its social relevance. I believe cinema has the power to illuminate hidden wounds and challenge inherited systems for healing. This film envisions a world where women are not confined by silence or circumstances, but empowered to define their own paths.
The urgency of this project is further underscored by the staggering lack of representation for women like me in the industry. According to the UCLA 2025 Hollywood Diversity Report, in 2024, there were zero Latina directors and screenwriters in the top theatrical movie releases. This erasure is a silence I am determined to break. SpeedWay is not just a film; it is an assertion that our stories belong on the screen and that our perspectives are vital to the cinematic landscape.
Your contribution is not simply to a production budget but an investment in a message that has the potential to resonate across generations and leave a long lasting impact.
By telling Susan’s story I hope to honor the resilience of those who endure; and to remind the audience that even the smallest acts can shape a lifetime. Together, we will redefine the narrative and drive toward a future where freedom, respect, and opportunity are guaranteed for all.
