After the Torment

Learn how the movie was made from Filmmaker Jason O'Brien and see the feature film June 11, 2011 at the Somerville Theatre:

It all started with a feature screenplay called Beautiful Torment, which I had spent over a year writing. It was a very personal story, told through the lives of a group of nine people who all come back together for their 20th high school reunion, and the surreal night that takes place after the reunion. 

On March 30, 2008, not long after midnight, I finally completed the screenplay. 

In an effort to help raise the funding to make the feature, I went ahead and started casting the film, believing a packaged production with an experienced cast would help to get the financing. myself and my crew spent six months fielding all kinds of auditions, both in Birmingham and in New York City, and from submissions from all over the world, and finally made the decisions for the nine main roles, as well as some supporting roles. 

But then, the reality of the difficulties of raising money for independent film productions set in, and it’s been a long process of facing many rejections, but the passion of this cast and crew has never diminished. 

In fact, one of those cast members, Gerald Keyzer, stumbled upon an idea in 2010: Why not create a new short film involving some of the characters from the feature? So I quickly thought through some ideas, wrote a short script in May of 2010, and Gerald, along with his directing partner, Adam J. Boyer, shot the film in New York in November of 2010, shipped the footage to Jason to edit, and After the Torment is the result. A film that tells the story of what happens to two of the characters in the feature film a year after the events in Beautiful Torment, but stands alone as the story of two people who never gave their mutual attraction a chance, and who get one last opportunity to see if they were meant to be together all along. - Jason O'Brien