Director: Erik Schmitt Run Time: 13 minutes Country: Germany

Synopsis: A young couple devise a wish list to spice up their lives but its fulfillment leads to unforeseen consequences.

Rhino Full Throttle (MANHATTAN SHORT Gold Medal Winner 2014) was Part 1 and Forever Over is part two in a trilogy of short films you're making. Are they all starring Marlene Lohse? And what's the connecting thread?
Yes, they are all starring Marleen. Though in the third one, she will not have red hair for a change. The trilogy is about love in the city. A sort of urban approach to how we deal with the people around us. The first one, Rhino Full Throttle, focused on how to find love. The second, Forever Over, is about how to deal with love lost. The third one will go one step deeper and talk about how to live with all those crazy feelings all together.

A lot of this film was shot in New York City? How did it come to be that a German filmmaker decided to work in NYC?
We had already shot most of the film when Rhino Full Throttle won a prize in NYC. Marleen, our cameraman Johannes and myself went there to pick it up. When we landed, my producer called to tell me: what a great chance to finish the last chapter of the film! Marleen says in the film she wants to move to another city. Why not shoot some scenes over there to include them in the film? Obviously, we didn't bring a camera. So we started shooting with our phones. It was pure luck that we found a Redcam the next day, and off we went to shoot the scenes that are now at the beginning and the very end of the film. Some of them are actually the phone shots.

Do you have a wish list?
Well, most of the wishes from the film are taken from wishes that the team and I had on our own private wish lists. It was actually quite funny to ask the question: what is a thing you always wanted to do, but never dared to? Because the next question should be: why don't we fulfill all those dreams? How different are these wishes from our real lives? And how would we change if we would go after them unconditionally?

You have a wonderful team around you and audiences clearly appreciate your work. Is there a feature film in the works from Erik Schmitt?
Yes, there is. Actually, I am working on the script right now. Marleen and the rest of the team are involved. Quite looking forward to it. I really love shooting shorts, but it feels like it is time for a change.

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