All Against the Sea is an atmospheric short film about the isolation people feel when struggling to save a relationship.
Hoping to repair their crumbling marriage, a desperate man takes his restless wife on a day-long kayaking trip on the open waters of Jamaica Bay, a formidable estuary in the midst of industrial New York City. As their exertion and surroundings calm their scattered nerves, the couple begins to reconnect. But truth has a way of bubbling up in the empty spaces of what goes unspoken.
Derived from a feature project based on a difficult period in my own life and inspired by Büchner’s Woyzeck, Godard’s Contempt, Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage, and Polanski’s Knife in the Water, All Against the Sea is a story I’ve wanted to explore and to share for years. Focusing on the emotional purgatory of a dissolving marriage, the film will follow two people caught in a netherworld of emotional upheaval as they try to navigate the loss of love, respect, and stability.
Shot in and around Jamaica Bay, a National Park in New York City, All Against the Sea will be an intimate film that will resonate with anyone who’s struggled through a dying relationship.
– Michael Sládek, 2015