The Callback
New York City, New York | Film Short
Comedy, Drama
THE CALLBACK is a dark comedy short film exploring rejection, ambition, and the desperate need to be chosen. Created by a team of emerging young filmmakers from across the world, your support will help bring this psychologically raw and visually ambitious story to life in New York City this summer.
The Callback
New York City, New York | Film Short
Comedy, Drama
10 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$1,360
Goal: $1,650 for production
THE CALLBACK is a dark comedy short film exploring rejection, ambition, and the desperate need to be chosen. Created by a team of emerging young filmmakers from across the world, your support will help bring this psychologically raw and visually ambitious story to life in New York City this summer.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
THE CALLBACK is a dark comedy short film set in New York City exploring the psychological instability of pursuing a creative life built around judgment, performance, and the need to be chosen.
The film follows Jude, a young actor drifting through auditions, waiting rooms, unanswered emails, and fragile routines as he clings to the possibility of a callback that could finally validate his existence. After a humiliating audition begins to fracture him psychologically, his desperation for approval starts bleeding into every part of his life.
THE CALLBACK is about the quiet emotional erosion that exists beneath artistic ambition. It examines the strange culture of creative industries where people are taught to transform rejection into motivation, self-exposure into survival, and instability into discipline. The film is less interested in success than in the emotional purgatory surrounding it.
Developed through the Emerging Filmmaker Mentorship Program at Barnard College, the film will be shot on location in New York City in Summer 2026 with a team of emerging young filmmakers from across the world.
Your support will help fund locations, production design, equipment, transportation, meals, and festival submissions, helping bring both this story and an ambitious community of young artists to life.
Independent films only exist because people choose to believe in them before they exist. Thank you for supporting THE CALLBACK.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cinema Lens Package Upgrade
Costs $500
The way we see Jude's world matters. These lenses will help us capture the intimacy, anxiety, and dark humor that define THE CALLBACK.
Craft Services
Costs $100
Independent films are built by people. Keeping our cast and crew fed helps them bring their best work to set every day.
Professional Sound Equipment
Costs $250
From the silence after a bad audition to the phone call Jude spends the entire film waiting for, sound is central to THE CALLBACK.
NYC Transportation Fund
Costs $200
New York is the backdrop of THE CALLBACK. This fund helps us move cast, crew, and equipment between locations throughout production.
Production Design & Set Dressing
Costs $250
Every poster, script page, and detail of Jude's apartment helps tell the story of a young actor desperate to be chosen.
Cinematic Lighting Package
Costs $350
Light is one of our most powerful storytelling tools. This package helps us create the emotional shifts that guide Jude's journey.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
THE CALLBACK is being created by a team of emerging filmmakers, artists, and performers brought together through Columbia University, NYU, and the wider New York independent film community.
Written and directed by Australian filmmaker Bianca Rozsa, the project draws heavily from her background in performance, dance, and psychological storytelling, exploring the instability of creative ambition and the emotional cost of needing to be chosen.
The film is produced by Emerging Filmmaker Mentorship Program alum LJ Mooney and photographed by cinematographer Jake Horgan, whose work brings a distinct visual style and professional filmmaking experience to the project. Together, they are joined by a passionate crew of emerging artists, designers, technicians, and storytellers from across the country, each contributing their own creative perspective to the film's visual and emotional language.
THE CALLBACK stars NYU Tisch actor Sayle Myler as Jude, whose performance sits at the center of the film’s exploration of rejection, performance, ego, and emotional collapse.
As young filmmakers entering increasingly unstable creative industries ourselves, this project is deeply personal to us. THE CALLBACK was born from conversations surrounding artistic survival, including the pressure to constantly perform, the fear of irrelevance, and the strange emotional isolation that exists beneath ambition.
This film is not only about actors; it is about anyone who has ever tied their self-worth to being chosen. Your support helps uplift an emerging generation of filmmakers creating independent cinema with honesty, experimentation, and emotional risk at its center.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
THE CALLBACK is a dark comedy short film set in New York City exploring the psychological instability of pursuing a creative life built around judgment, performance, and the need to be chosen.
The film follows Jude, a young actor drifting through auditions, waiting rooms, unanswered emails, and fragile routines as he clings to the possibility of a callback that could finally validate his existence. After a humiliating audition begins to fracture him psychologically, his desperation for approval starts bleeding into every part of his life.
THE CALLBACK is about the quiet emotional erosion that exists beneath artistic ambition. It examines the strange culture of creative industries where people are taught to transform rejection into motivation, self-exposure into survival, and instability into discipline. The film is less interested in success than in the emotional purgatory surrounding it.
Developed through the Emerging Filmmaker Mentorship Program at Barnard College, the film will be shot on location in New York City in Summer 2026 with a team of emerging young filmmakers from across the world.
Your support will help fund locations, production design, equipment, transportation, meals, and festival submissions, helping bring both this story and an ambitious community of young artists to life.
Independent films only exist because people choose to believe in them before they exist. Thank you for supporting THE CALLBACK.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cinema Lens Package Upgrade
Costs $500
The way we see Jude's world matters. These lenses will help us capture the intimacy, anxiety, and dark humor that define THE CALLBACK.
Craft Services
Costs $100
Independent films are built by people. Keeping our cast and crew fed helps them bring their best work to set every day.
Professional Sound Equipment
Costs $250
From the silence after a bad audition to the phone call Jude spends the entire film waiting for, sound is central to THE CALLBACK.
NYC Transportation Fund
Costs $200
New York is the backdrop of THE CALLBACK. This fund helps us move cast, crew, and equipment between locations throughout production.
Production Design & Set Dressing
Costs $250
Every poster, script page, and detail of Jude's apartment helps tell the story of a young actor desperate to be chosen.
Cinematic Lighting Package
Costs $350
Light is one of our most powerful storytelling tools. This package helps us create the emotional shifts that guide Jude's journey.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
THE CALLBACK is being created by a team of emerging filmmakers, artists, and performers brought together through Columbia University, NYU, and the wider New York independent film community.
Written and directed by Australian filmmaker Bianca Rozsa, the project draws heavily from her background in performance, dance, and psychological storytelling, exploring the instability of creative ambition and the emotional cost of needing to be chosen.
The film is produced by Emerging Filmmaker Mentorship Program alum LJ Mooney and photographed by cinematographer Jake Horgan, whose work brings a distinct visual style and professional filmmaking experience to the project. Together, they are joined by a passionate crew of emerging artists, designers, technicians, and storytellers from across the country, each contributing their own creative perspective to the film's visual and emotional language.
THE CALLBACK stars NYU Tisch actor Sayle Myler as Jude, whose performance sits at the center of the film’s exploration of rejection, performance, ego, and emotional collapse.
As young filmmakers entering increasingly unstable creative industries ourselves, this project is deeply personal to us. THE CALLBACK was born from conversations surrounding artistic survival, including the pressure to constantly perform, the fear of irrelevance, and the strange emotional isolation that exists beneath ambition.
This film is not only about actors; it is about anyone who has ever tied their self-worth to being chosen. Your support helps uplift an emerging generation of filmmakers creating independent cinema with honesty, experimentation, and emotional risk at its center.