International Film Festival Rotterdam

The only US fiction feature in Bright Future this year, the film comes to us from the producers behind BLUE RUIN by Jeremy Saulnier. Set in the mid 1990's, SUPER DARK TIMES is a suspenseful and intelligent film about youth and the loss of innocence - what happens when the darkness lurking beneath the surface of everyday life begins to emerge.

A terrible accident transforms best friends from high school Zach and Josh into enemies. This ambitious thriller is set in the American suburbs of the early 1990s – the pre-Columbine era. A refreshing debut, searching for the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood, courage and fear, good and evil.

In the social minefield that is secondary school, Zach and Josh at least have one another. The teenagers are growing up in a leafy American suburb in the 1990s, with stuff like Clinton, button-up dresses and Nirvana going on in the background. Life revolves around vying for popularity, hanging out, falling in love and looking for kicks. One day, a traumatic accident takes place within the group of friends, driving a wedge between the previously inseparable Zach and Josh. During the day, Zach gets by as best he can, but at night he is caught between wet dreams and nightmares. His life becomes increasingly complicated and, as this thriller reveals, ever more dangerous. 
Following his short film Too Cool For School (2015), Kevin Phillips atmospherically dives into the confusion of teenage life. Themes such as lust, love, courage, fear and maturity all play a role, as does learning to tell the difference between good and evil.