V Is for Violet

Todd Verow's 1989 short follows two teenagers chasing very different dreams. One is Violet, a young actress making her way in a world of performance and attention; the other is a hustler whose life is shaped by survival and by the people who pay for his time. Their stories sit side by side, sketching a portrait of youth, ambition and the price of being looked at. Written and directed by Verow early in a long career in independent film, this fifteen-minute American drama features Sara Kane, Jen Gentile, Leslie Grant and Ed Jekot. With its raw, underground sensibility, it captures a downtown world in which fame, desire and exploitation are never far apart, and offers an early glimpse of the themes and style Verow would continue to explore in his later work.