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Logline

To save his family from financial ruin, a desperate man hires the Russian mob to kill him for the insurance, but when they take his money yet leave him alive, he’s left broke, humiliated, and in way over his head.

Synopsis

Seamus Lynch is drowning. His daughter’s recovering from leukemia. His marriage is falling apart. He’s out of work, out of options, and buried in debt. So when a friend inadvertently opens a dark door, he hands his last twenty grand over to a Russian mobster.

It all builds to Seamus and his estranged wife Margot forming a reluctant alliance to survive. And by the end, holed up in a beachside safehouse caught between the mob and the FBI, the man who tried to disappear finally learns how to show up.

The seed of this story came from something someone said when I was caught in a bad situation: “You want? I know a guy who can take care of… things.” It stuck. For years. How close are any of us, really, to crossing a line we didn’t know was there?

It’s about redemption through sacrifice. But it turns on a contradiction: what if the most honorable thing someone can do appears, at least on the surface, like giving up?

Seamus is a man living on the frayed edges of the American Dream, where doing everything “right” no longer guarantees anything. The film challenges the idea that worth is measured by what we provide, and asks what’s left when every part of a man’s identity—career, family, masculinity—has come apart. He’s not equipped, but he has to find a way.

Redemption, in this world, doesn’t come from escape, but from facing the wreckage—his mistakes, his fear, his family—and choosing to act.
 

Meet the Filmmakers

John Washburn — Writer/Director
John Washburn is a Brooklyn-based writer/director who tells grounded, character-driven stories about flawed people navigating moral gray areas with wit and humor.His path to filmmaking has been a long, serendipitous circle—from making Super 8 movies as a teenager, to touring in bands, to building a career as a creative director at NYC agencies. Across music, design, and commercial production, storytelling has been the throughline: shaping emotional experience with precision and restraint.

His narrative shorts have screened and been awarded internationally, and his screenplays have placed in top competitions including the Nicholl Fellowship and Austin Film Festival. Alongside his narrative work, he directs commercial and branded content for clients like Google, emphasizing performance, clarity, and emotional weight.

Nelson Isava — Producer
Nelson Isava is a producer born and raised in Caracas and based in New York City. His work explores character-driven stories with emotional urgency, rooted in the belief that bold, human-centered cinema can thrive within limited resources. To him, small-scale filmmaking is not a constraint but a creative philosophy—one that favors clarity, rigor, and heart over spectacle.

His career spans fiction, documentary, and digital series, unified by a focus on culturally relevant, emotionally complex narratives. His early shorts screened at the Art of Brooklyn and Urbanworld Film Festivals, and he later showran editorial and branded docuseries at Complex Networks, crafting culture-forward nonfiction for millions. His latest short, ATTAGIRL!, starring Leyna Bloom, premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and was co-funded by MAC Cosmetics. The next stop will be 2025’s HollyShorts in Los Angeles.

As a professor at SVA, Nelson trains emerging filmmakers to see limitations as opportunities and to build sustainable careers through inventive production and alternative funding models.

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact fiscalsponsorship@filmindependent.org.