Apart from being one of best films I saw last year (out of maybe a hundred) this one is an ultimate lesson in artistic/entertainment film-making in general and no budget projects in particular.
Do prepare yourself for dv quality shots converted to film.
The film is about a woman suffering from what seems to be an acute mental illness, not knowing if she is alive or dead, following clues trying to find out what is happening to her.
"Off" has affected me both as an artist specializing in no budget film-making/multimedia projects and as an avid film consumer looking for entertaining thought provoking works of art. Apart from the joy of viewing it, it is an experiment that shows you how to produce an excellent movie, with a limited or no budget at all, using just your creativity and some basic tools (dv camera and computer). It proves that in order to produce a work of art the most important thing is talent, ideas and some basic technical knowledge.
It looks like this film could have been done with under 1000$ and maybe a month or so of production by a four member team, the only expensive thing that comes to mind here is paying for the travels to different spots on the globe (I guess in the vicinity of 10000$).
On the acting part the film utilizes one talented actress who acts solo for 95% of the film's length, supporting her are another handful of actors who only show up for a couple of minutes here and there, the rest are probably unsuspecting bystanders.
The film seems to have been stripped of any sound recorded on locations, then later the soundtrack was probably added in the editing room, which seems to have been taken place on a modest mac computer platform equipped with editing software. The script actually allows this to be done marvelously well, due to the fact that most dialogs are conducted in the woman's brain as a kind of narration. The music is great and sound effects are decent.
Of course the best part of the film is the script and direction, which are both entertaining and thought provoking, much much better than most Hollywood films which cost a whole lot more to create.
Not every script/project can be done on low budget, part of my high acclaim is for creating a wonderful script that fits the budget and delivers the goods in an optimal manner, a higher budget would make no difference.
