A young woman waits for her lover for a secret trip. However, he does not show up and does not respond to her messages. That’s when strange and inexplicable events begin to happen in her house. She asks for help from her lover, who ignores her. Realizing that she is hopelessly alone, she gives up waiting for salvation and surrenders to her own shadow.

Review by Victoria Angelique

The short film, SUBMERGED, is a world set in symbolism as a woman is trapped by her own feelings. She is left alone, during a time that she desperately needs another person, which leaves her feeling like she is drowning in darkness as she frantically continues to call and text her “Love.” 

Something bad has happened, at first the audience assumes that her love has passed, since he isn’t answering, only for the truth to be discovered when she opens a bathroom drawer filled with pregnancy tests. This is the final plunge after years of trying for a family, with hope being dashed and this woman being left alone to deal with the news at the most inopportune moment. She has been submerged into a state of desperate psychosis, needing her “Love”, only for him to be unavailable at this moment. 

Penélope is fighting with herself. Symbols to show her drowning manifesting in the form of a fish and water. There is dripping water, as she sits in shadow clutching her phone before she sees a fish. After she finds the drawer of pregnancy tests, she begins to see herself as a fish out of water. Lost in the world with no one to help her. She even begins to fight with herself as she drowns in a tub of water. 

This film speaks to an unexpressed taboo that many women deal with when it comes to infertility and the feelings that come with it. Penélope shows what there are no words for and what the burden many women bear in silence when they learn that they can never give birth. She shows how devastating the news truly is and why a woman should not be left alone when given such a tragic diagnosis. The actress gave an award winning performance to depict a topic that many people are uncomfortable with discussing, even though it plunges many women into a deep depression where she feels like she might never surface again like it did Penélope.