DEVOTEE
2024 Hollyshorts Film Festival
August 8 – 18, 2024
TCL Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Logline
While up late one night, a precocious boy uncovers his mother’s dark devotion.
It’s always a bold choice to bring harm to a child. It is even more audacious to have a child witness something eternally scarring. Filmmaker Richard J. Bosner does both in just over six minutes. HollyShorts 2024 film DEVOTEE takes fear back in time when the threat of cults was all the rage. Not the watered-down wackiness of politics, but honest-to-good, off-the-rails, die-for-your-cause cult.
The production design is perfect. It is a mix of leftover 80s staple furniture and an early 90s PC, the only reason we can place the film in a specific era. The score is eerie and ominous.
While Ben Bladon and Mackenzie Firgens (Give Me An A) do a fantastic job of putting the viewer on edge, Grant Feely owns every second of screen time. Feely is a star, delivering pure terror and the end of innocence. All I can say is I hope this is the opening of a feature-length version of DEVOTEE because I need the rest of Ray’s story ASAP.
About the Director
Richard J Bosner (Producer/ Director) is best known for producing the true story Fruitvale Station starring Octavia Spencer and Michael B. Jordan which received the Sundance Film Festival U.S. Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category and the Sundance Audience Award, U.S. Dramatic, presented by Acura along with 44 nominations/wins during the 2013 Awards Season.
Bosner has also produced numerous breakout films such as Other People starring Molly Shannon, Black Bear starring Aubrey Plaza, Axelle Carolyn’s horror feature The Manor with Blumhouse TV/Amazon Studios, and Netflix’s Take the 10 starring Josh Peck and Tony Revolori.
In 2019, Bosner was honored as one of the years LATINX Trail-Blazing producers for his substantial contribution to diverse and inclusive filmmaking. He is currently in post-production on Michael Tyburski’s feature Turn Me On starring Nick Robinson and Bel Powley.
Run Time: 7 minutes
Language: English
Country: United States
Writer and Director: Richard J. Bosner
Cast: Grant Feely, MacKenzie Firgens, Ben Bladon
Editor: Robert Schafer (Megalopolis)
Sound: Tom Myers (Skywalker Sound)
Two women attempt to escape a cult by hiking through the desert. When plans go awry, deception, confusion, and brainwashing pit them against one another. 
The screenplay’s wordplay, score, and scene blocking heightened every moment. There was never a dull moment. The endless mindfuckery rubbed my nerves raw. I found I had left fingernail impressions on my palms without realizing it. The paranoia and tension in the dialogue had my head spinning. Are these women gaslighting one another, is one of them a villain and is this even real? These are some of the questions I had while sorting through the madness that is 
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