Curfew

2012 0h 19m EN

👍

7.3

SOLID

★7.3TMDB · 152

Drama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

At the lowest point of his life, Richie gets a call from his estranged sister asking him to look after his nine-year old niece, Sophia, for a few hours.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Fatima Ptacek
Sophia
Shawn Christensen
Richie
Dana Segal
Gabby
Kirsten Holly Smith
Cathy
Kim Allen
Maggie
Helga Athineos
gino patti

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Shawn Christensen
Writers: Shawn Christensen
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Tight 19-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.1M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 14 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Shawn Christensen, shot by Daniel Katz. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Darren Morze. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Evan Henke shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Fatima Ptacek and Shawn Christensen and Dana Segal carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Shawn Christensen directs. Daniel Katz behind the camera. Darren Morze scores. Evan Henke cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Tight 19-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
2Shot for just $0.1M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
3Released 14 years ago.
4Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
5Directed by Shawn Christensen, shot by Daniel Katz. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Darren Morze. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Evan Henke shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Fatima Ptacek and Shawn Christensen and Dana Segal carry the top of the cast.
9IMDB entry: tt2088735 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography: Daniel Katz
Original score: Darren Morze
Editing: Evan Henke
Production design: Nina Isabella
Makeup / hair: Allison Huntington Chase
Sound: Graham Reznick
Runtime: 19 min · 0h 19m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $50,000
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG
IMDB: Curfew (2012)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Shawn Christensen

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-12-13
★ 7/10
“Richie” (auteur Shawn Christensen) has reached rock bottom as he bathes in water tinged with his own blood, razor blade in hand. Then his phone rings. Serendipity? His estranged sister needs a babysitter. Now clearly they have been apart for a while and for a reason as she makes it fairly clear that her choice of him is only marginally more preferable to stopping a stranger on the subway platform! Anyway, he agrees and takes the young girl to a bowling alley where nobody does any bowling. “Sophia” (Fatima Ptacek) plays on her games console and he smokes. They chat, and she proves remarkably sagely for a young girl. Indeed, she isn’t intimidated by his adulthood and quite quickly comes across as considerably more grown up than him. He has two options: to freeze her out until her mother returns or to engage with her. One will cost him nothing, one might give him everything. His is a life of emptiness, the cause of which we don’t discover nor that which has left him and his sibling distrustful of each other. What the young girl might be able to do is act as a loving conduit between two people who clearly haven’t their problems to seek and I suppose the thrust is somewhere between “let sleeping dogs lie” and their being “light at the end of the tunnel”. It’s clearly suggesting the choices we made - good or bad - in the past needn’t define our future, and that loneliness is a powerful toxin. Ptacek steals this, but Christensen delivers quite effectively too as it packs quite a bit into twenty minutes.

Production companies