The Salton Sea

A young woman identified only in the credits as The Driver (Jamie Ann Allman), driving drunk on a remote desert road, hits something in the road, but panics and speeds away. She stops in an abandoned town to wash the car and is approached by The Hitchhiker (Diarra Kilpatrick), who blackmails her into taking her along on a ride to the sea. The odyssey of these two troubled women through this desolate land of beautiful vistas turns eerie when The Driver can't find the road out of a ghost town; she loses her direction and seems to be backtracking. Things become stranger until, in a surprising twist, the journey changes profoundly. The mysteriously surreal psychological drama is the directorial debut for Veena Sud, who created the Emmy-nominated series THE KILLING, which also starred Allman. (Sarasota Film Festival)