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Currently Playing: LOYAL | Omeleto

A woman tries a cafe. Arlo gets coffee from the same cafe every day. The cafe owner, Eleni, knows her well, has her order ready with a special heart and chats with her, their ongoing conversation full of appreciation and even affection. But one day, Arlo tries somewhere new when her usual place seems busy. Her loyal barista catches her betrayal, and things get awkward -- and then just a little freaky, as Arlo discovers the strengths and limits of customer loyalty. Directed and written by Sara Chia-Jewell and Antonis Papamichael, this offbeat short comedy looks at what happens when a small, often overlooked thread in the social fabric of our lives begins to fray. In social networks, ties are defined as strong, weak or absent, and loose ties are often situational and low emotional intensity -- think a favorite barista at a beloved cafe, a clerk at a grocery store, the receptionist at a gym, all of whom may make friendly banter with a large number of people a day. The film's comedy comes from endowing seemingly incidental relationships with great, exaggerated melodrama and po-faced absurdism, both celebrating these incidental yet vital social interactions and poking fun at the power they have over us sometimes. Shot in muted light and tones that suggest the humdrum of ordinary life, the storytelling sets up Arlo's quotidian routine, the center of which is her coffee order at her usual cafe. But when Arlo tries out a different cafe and is discovered by her usual cafe worker, the seemingly low-key interactions are interrupted with slowed-down, exaggerated emotional intensity and reverie. As Arlo deals with the social fallout of her betrayal, this tone of studied, almost deadpan understatement is often punctured with these emotional exaggerations, often focused around embarrassment or shame and capturing how outsized those feelings are in our lived experience. These casual bonds carry more weight than expected, it seems, and a simple switch of cafe for a day feels like a horrible betrayal. As Arlo, actor Sara Chia-Jewell is an everywoman Londoner whose understated demeanor suits the sometimes quirky tone of the film. That quirkiness escalates into full-on farce, comically slowed-down to an almost absurd degree as Arlo discovers loyalty has its own rewards, after all. It propels the film into an almost operatic conclusion, where the film's wry understatement gives way to all-out absurdism as chaos ensues and heroics arise. It all makes LOYAL a unique film that balances an offbeat, deadpan tone with sharp social observation -- and may make you appreciate (and tip) your harried yet friendly local neighborhood barista when they go the extra mile. LOYAL. Courtesy of Sara Chia-Jewell and Antonis Papamichael at https://instagram.com/loyal_shortfilm.