The World Without You

Synopsis

A family gathers to honor the memory of their journalist son, Leo Frankel, who was killed in Iraq the previous year. They are confronted with old hurts, as well as dark secrets, that threaten to tear the fragile threads holding the family together.

Leo’s mother Marilyn, entrenched in grief, drops a bomb when she announces she’s leaving her husband David who has moved on from his mourning and still holds a grudge against Leo for his decision to go to Iraq and leave his wife and toddler behind.

Meanwhile, Leo’s widow, Thisbe, struggles to come to terms with how falling in love with a new man will change her dynamic with the family. Personal quarrels and long-held animosity between Leo’s siblings plague the family, only being intensified by his memorial, while his sister, Noelle, grapples with the fact that she was the last to see Leo alive during a trip to Jerusalem.

Will this dysfunctional-family reunion bring them closer together, or drive them further apart?

Director

Damon Shalit is an actor, director, writer, producer. “…whatever role I need to fill to make it happen”. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, raised in Houston, Texas, Damon studied at the University of Texas in Austin, and with acclaimed acting teacher, Larry Moss, in Los Angeles. Damon taught acting and filmmaking at NYFA for five years as well as privately in Chicago.