Split Decision - Short Film Review! (Something New!)

WELL.  All this talk over here at The B Channel of changing our narratives (or was that just me?) and what do you know, thematically-appropriate media just landed in my lap.

Split Decision, a short film by Antoine Allen, is about to make its film festival debut at the Action on Film International Film Festival in Monrovia, California.  In anticipation of that, I was granted access to an advance screening.

The film is about a Hispanic lesbian boxer (already I can see you nodding your heads in understanding as to why I related to this story) named Lola Rosario, whom we meet the day before her first professional fight.  Her relationship with her father in shambles, she pours all of her energy into fighting...and into her girlfriend...and into her boyfriend (hashtag-plot-twist!)...and all of it builds toward an ending that is as dramatic as it is inevitable.  Life happens.  Messes happen (sometimes intentionally).  And sometimes we're forced to confront our issues before we're ready.

That's a lot to cram into a 28-minute film, but it worked.  I was intrigued from start to finish, and drawn to the universal themes of struggle and self-definition.  Lola is an underdog, but by no means a perfect one.  There are reasons to root for her and reasons to think she can do better.

But isn't that true of all of us?

Best of luck to this film, and to those involved in its creation.  And power to the artists among us who are driven to tell the stories that reflect the highs and lows of a life lived large.     

Split Decision on Facebook and IMDb.