Filming HER LOVER feature July 2025
Original Made From Scratch
Praise for HER LOVER proof-of-concept
HER LOVER is an evocative short film that pits Sandy and Cecil, two new parents, against the shared past, the haunting secrets, and the choices that led them to their new life. Mary Healy brings a heartfelt yearning to the role of SANDY, striving to understand how her mother’s decisions about her lover and her unborn child have affected her life. Michael Emery is both emotional and steely as the lover who fears revealing too much about the past and jeopardizing his future. Viewers are left wanting more and pondering the choices they might make in a similar situation. HER LOVER is a cautionary tale, a painfully real allegory, and a haunting reflection on intimacy, showcasing a beautiful cinematic depth of technique in rich colors and drama, highlighting the multi-layered familial emotions of deception, tension, and fear. Our brilliant cast navigates the delicate present while besieged by the treachery of memory and the past.
Watch the Trailer
Her Lover
The Lost Daughter meets The Quiet Girl while on A Walk On The Moon because it's a suspenseful dreamlike/watching of a mother and child, when the child can only watch, until she's old enough to re-capture the nostalgia.
HER LOVER
Logline
A young woman’s world is sent reeling when her lover discloses a family secret that led to her mother’s death and threatens their new life together.
Story Summary / Synopsis
Her Lover focuses on Sandy, a 26-year-old new mother, and her lover, Cecil, 35, father of her baby, who was her father's handyman when she was 11 in 1975. Sandy is plagued by the mystery surrounding her mother's (Sarah, age 35) life and death. Sandy has grown (though not seen in the short - through a troubled teen period, making a life for herself), yet she is constantly haunted by the secrets. She knows her mother passed away but was never told the details. Cecil has grown from the 20-year-old helper (having served in the military directly after Sarah's death, also not covered in Her Lover), to reconnect with Sandy and begin a romantic relationship.
We soon realize Sandy has repressed some memories as a way to live with the mystery and that she knew about her mother and Cecil before Her Lover began; she hides the fact she found the box on her own to see if he will come clean and show and tell her everything.
Her Lover unearths the deep love that has haunted Sandy and can haunt many as they grow from childhood to adulthood. Her experience is not universal, but the deep love this family felt for each other is worth exploring and possibly striving for. We are left with hope.
