''Two Distant Strangers'' is a 2020 American

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

written by

Travon Free Travon Free (born ) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He has written for ''Full Frontal with Samantha Bee'', ''The Daily Show'' on Comedy Central, and ''Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons'' on HBO. Free won an Emmy Award for his work o ...

and directed by Free and

Martin Desmond Roe Martin Desmond Roe is a Great Britain, British-American film and television director, writer, and producer. He is best known for ''Buzkashi Boys'' (2012), ''Kobe Bryant's Muse'' (2015), ''Breaking2'' (2017), ''Tom vs Time'' (2018), and ''We are ...

. The film examines the deaths of Black Americans during encounters with police through the eyes of a character trapped in a

time loop The time loop or temporal loop is a plot device in fiction whereby characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition. The term "time loop" is sometimes us ...

that keeps ending in his death. ''Two Distant Strangers'' won the award for

Best Live Action Short Film The Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film is an award presented at the annual Academy Awards ceremony. The award has existed, under various names, since 1957. From 1936 until 1956 there were two separate awards, "Best Short Subject, One- ...

at the

93rd Academy Awards The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released from January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. The ceremony was held on April 25, 2021 ...

, marking distributor

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

's first win in the category.

Plot

In New York City, graphic designer Carter James tries to get home to his dog, Jeter, the morning after a first date, only to find himself trapped in a

in which he is repeatedly confronted in the street by a

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

officer, Merk. Merk wonders whether Carter is smoking a joint and wants to search his bag. Each encounter ends with Carter being killed by the police, then waking up in the bed of his date, Perri. In one version of the loop, riot police burst into Perri's apartment, mistaking it for a different apartment because the door number is hanging upside down, and shoot him there. After 99 deaths, Carter decides to discuss the situation with Officer Merk. Carter tells him about the time loop, offering Merk evidence by correctly predicting what people around them will do next. Carter asks Merk to drive him home. The journey ends without mishap; Merk and Carter get out of the patrol car and shake hands. But as Carter turns to enter his apartment building, Merk starts applauding what he calls Carter's "noble performance", revealing that Merk remembers the previous loops too. Merk then shoots him in the back, while a pool of blood starts forming in the shape of Africa, and says "See you tomorrow, kid". Carter wakes up once more in Perri's bed. Undeterred, Carter leaves Perri's apartment to make yet another effort to get home. As the song "

The Way It Is The Way It Is may refer to: Music * ''The Way It Is'' (Bruce Hornsby album), by Bruce Hornsby and the Range ** "The Way It Is" (Bruce Hornsby song), the title song * ''The Way It Is'' (Glenn Hughes album), or the title song * ''The Way It Is' ...

" plays, names of Black Americans who have died in encounters with police are listed.

Cast

Joey Badass Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott (born January 20, 1995), known professionally as Joey Badass (stylized as Joey Bada$$), is an American rapper, singer, and actor. A native of Brooklyn, New York City, he is a founding member of the hip-hop collective Pro ...

as Carter James *

Andrew Howard Andrew Howard (born June 12, 1969, in Cardiff, Wales) is a Welsh theatre, television and film actor. Training Howard trained at Cygnet Training Theatre in Exeter in the late 1980s, touring in productions of ''A Christmas Carol'', ''Twelfth Night ...

as Merk, an NYPD officer * Zaria Simone as Perri, Carter's date

Release

In March 2021,

acquired the distribution rights and made the film available from April 9.Rodriguez, Karla (April 9, 2021)
"Director Travon Free’s Oscar-Nominated 'Two Distant Strangers' Reflects the Time We Live In"
''Complex''.

Comparisons to existing works

''Two Distant Strangers'' has been compared to other films that share a similar premise: * ''Groundhog Day for a Black Man'' (2016), directed by Cynthia Kao **In April 2021, Cynthia Kao posted a video on the social media site

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

alleging that this film plagiarized a short film she had directed in December 2016 titled ''Groundhog Day For a Black Man''. The contents of Kao's film were similar to the plot of ''Two Distant Strangers'', which are both about a black man trying to relive the same day over and over until he can survive a police altercation. Furthermore, in 2020, during the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...

, social media news outlet NowThis contacted Kao about featuring the film on their Facebook and Instagram pages. The following year, Netflix released ''Two Distant Strangers'' in collaboration with NowThis, excluding any credit of Kao's name or that she had anything to do with the original idea for the movie in any way.Tanvi Akhauri, May 1, 2021
Woman’s TikTok About Oscar-Winning Short’s Close Resemblance To Her Film Goes Viral
/ref> NowThis responded to the claims, citing the fact that the film was independently conceived and in final production before they became involved, disputing any connection to Kao. * ''Replay'' (2019),

The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, su ...

, Season 1, Episode 3, directed by Gerard McMurray * ''The Obituary of Tunde Johnson'' (2019), directed by

Ali LeRoi Ali LeRoi (born February 12, 1962) is an Emmy-award-winning"Ali LeRoi"
''Emmys'' website, the Academy ...

Accolades

References

Footnotes Citations

External links

* *
Official trailer
* * {{Black Lives Matter 2020 short films 2020 science fiction films 2020 drama films American science fiction drama films Films about racism 2020 films Films about dogs English-language Netflix original films Time loop films Live Action Short Film Academy Award winners 2020s English-language films 2020s American films