An official selection of the 2014 Heartland Film Festival's High School Film Competition and a finalist in the competition, writer/director Malone Lumarda's beautifully photographed and meditative 6-minute short Black Rock Creek follows a young girl (Denise DeLong) taking a mystical walk along the beautiful Black Rock Creek.

Sound simple? For the most part, it is. It's also six-minutes of cinematic serenity that is the sort of short film that just sort of invites you to surrender to its atmosphere and enjoy its pristine imagery and the quiet yet mesmerizing performance of DeLong. The film has already picked up a prize at the Seattle International Film Festival and with this mere 6-minute piece Lumarda becomes one of those young filmmakers I will anxiously look forward to watching in the future.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic