During the COVID-19 pandemic, two neighbors who have never met – a 30-year-old Black mother and a childless, 57-year-old white man – become intimately familiar with each other’s world view in the days following the murder of George Floyd.

SYNOPSIS:

Against the all-too-real backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the days immediately following the murder of George Floyd, two upper middle-class Northeast Ohio residents who live across a busy main street from each other – but who have never met – begin an awkwardly human dialogue about race, age and gender. Dany is a 30-year-old Black woman and the mother of a young girl, Tara. Dom is a 57-year-old white man with no children. Their first quality interaction takes place at a coffee shop after a blatantly racist white man verbally bullies Dany and Dom defends her, even though she does not need defending. Their afternoon progresses with the two of them attending a small Black Lives Matter rally in their suburban community – Dany planned to attend, Dom spontaneously joins her – and it continues at two different locations in the city of Cleveland that are emotionally meaningful to Dany. As their conversation deepens, more of their respective philosophies, ignorance, prejudices, intolerances and secrets reveal themselves. Tempers flare, laughter is shared and eyes are opened. Through it all, and punctuated by another callous bullying of Dany by a white security guard, Dany learns more about how white people arrive at their ingrained behaviors, and Dom begins to understand why sympathizing for African-Americans is only the beginning of what white people must be willing to do be effective in the BLM movement in order to bring about real change. In the end, the meaningful dialogue between these two people of disparate race, age, gender and upbringing – on the verge of disintegrating throughout this revelatory day – continues with a mutual pledge to keep their communication going and to become genuine neighbors, no matter how far apart they are … physically or ideologically.

THE NEAR DISTANCE