''The Salton Sea'' is a 2016 American guerrilla film written by

Veena Sud Veena Cabreros-Sud (pronounced "Sood") is a Canadian-born American television writer, director, and producer. She is best known for developing the American television drama '' The Killing'', which is based on the Danish series '' Forbrydelsen (T ...

, an avant garde crime thriller starring

Jamie Anne Allman Jamie Anne Allman (née Brown; born April 6, 1977) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Terry Marek on AMC's '' The Killing'', and Connie Riesler on the FX police drama ''The Shield''. Early life Allman grew up on a farm in Ka ...

and

Diarra Kilpatrick Diarra Kilpatrick (born ) is an American actress. She is best known for acting on the ABC Digital series ''American Koko'' and HBO's ''Perry Mason''. Kilpatrick also appeared in '' Private Practice'', '' The Last O.G''., and ''The Twilight Zon ...

. The experimental film was shot over the course of two weekends near the

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gulf o ...

in California. It was screened on April 9, 2016, at the

Sarasota Film Festival The Sarasota Film Festival is a film festival located in Sarasota, Florida and is held in April. Its mission is "to celebrate the art of filmmaking and the contribution of filmmakers by hosting an international film festival and developing year-lo ...

Synopsis

A woman (Allman) drives aimlessly alone through the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

, running from her past. Drunk one early morning, she hits something on a remote road. Unsure if it was human or animal, alive or dead, she doesn't bother to check. She instead drives off in a panic and frantically tries to wash the blood off her car in a nearby, seemingly abandoned town. Then, she realizes she is being watched. A young hitchhiker (Kilpatrick), a lost soul herself, has wandered these desert roads for years. The hitchhiker blackmails the driver into giving her a ride to the ocean. On the road, the two strangers find solace and humor in one another. Their drive is a meditation on death, on one's checkered past, on grief, regret and, ultimately, finding one's way home. However, the driver realizes that her companion holds a secret that will profoundly change this journey.

References

External links

* 2016 films 2016 crime thriller films Films set in California 2016 directorial debut films American crime thriller films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language crime thriller films {{crime-thriller-film-stub