Phillip Van, a recent NYU grad, has received accolades for his Berlin Int'l Film Festival creation, High Maintenance. A film that earned him a Student Academy Award and numerous festival honors.

What is the basic concept or premise behind And She Stares Longingly and how did you arrive at it?

The short is really about a kind of feeling. Its one of the most memorable and intense feelings Ive had and its a common one around the world. Theres no word for it exactly in English, and I find this strange. You could describe it as similar to nostalgia, but its different, less precious, more fatal and meaningful. The Portuguese have a word for it: Saudade, and they express it through their music, Fado, much of which bears similarities to the title track in the film, Come Wander With Me. Its a particular kind of longing for something like youth or home, something that is perhaps even more a part of you because its lost.

Ive used shorts to tell tightly conceived stories, arc characters and hone my craft, but creating a tone specific and unique to my subject matter is the greatest challenge. Im most interested in working with narratives, rather than experimental or abstract ideas, but in my narratives I try to define something inscrutable, an emergent property that exists beyond the characters and story, something that haunts and permeates.

My influences for this film were pretty wide-ranging: everything from Charles Laughtons Night of The Hunter to original Twilight Zone episodes to some very dense German renaissance paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder to the works of Carl Jung. The film does tempt the taboo to insight a subtle sense of dread, but any overtly taboo interpretation is probably not as substantial as one that takes into account the semiotic undertones of all the imagery.

I like films and art that are bottomless, that you can keep looking into and reinterpreting and that inspire that process. My favorite art and entertainment is full of meaning. This sounds obvious, even definitional, but I dont think it is. Theres a lot out there that either fakes it or is overtly literal. I went so far towards a semiotic approach to the story that the images are justly loaded, even to the extent that they risk absurdity. But I welcome that. Bring on the rabbits.

The special effects are very well-integrated in the final film. What was the technical process behind creating the vision you had for the film?

Prior to the shoot, I spent a couple of months researching my aesthetic, scanning dozens of nature photographs, a mix of plant life from both the sub-tropics and the Pacific Northwest, the two places I grew up. I wanted the garden and forest to feel exotic yet familiar, whimsical yet grounded. In order to walk the line it was critical to base my look on plants that are amazing and that actually exist, rather than something fully fictional. It got very personal. The autumn leaves on the trees were scans of actual leaves from the tree in front of the house I grew up in. The beagle is based on my dog, named Mars, with whom I was raised.

You've won numerous festival honors including a Student Academy Award in 2007. What do you hope to achieve with And She Stares Longingly?

I hope people see it and get something out of it. Beyond that, I dont have any expectations. I think thats the best way to go about screening and distributing a short. Ive seen bad shorts make careers and good shorts go neglected. In the past, rejections unsettled me, but when I got a slew of acceptances and awards that completely invalidated the rejections, I realized the true nature of the beast. Im on a great festival selection committee now with some amazing people. And there are cracks in the pavement. The more exposure you have, the less likely you fall through.

This short will play at festivals. Limited audiences can help generate buzz, but theres also something to be said for access. The internet is making the short accessible to a huge audience. People I never would have expected are phoning in. I had an aversion to the internet for a time, because without content filters, short filmmakers hard work can get slopped in with a lot of junk. But I think as long as the site and platform for the film are well designed, the internet can out-perform the majority of venues. The writings on the wall. Its the future.

What's your favorite moment in the film?

Tricky question. This is kind of like asking, Which of your kids is your favorite? I know the film so well that the moments I like probably wont coalesce with the ones that stand out to first-time viewers. I really love simple things, like the first shot in the forest, a high-angle close-up of the girls face as she looks at the mans back. Theres something about the look of doubt on the face of a little girl that I find subtly unnerving. Its an expression that doesnt belong there, not yet. For me, a simple look like that opens up a gateway to an adult life, and its the kind of passage that only goes one way.