The filmmaker: Madness and Genius was 25-year-old Ryan Eslinger's first feature film. It premiered at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival, and received The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize in Science and Technology at the Hamptons Film Festival that year. The film also garnered Ryan a 2004 Independent Spirit Award nomination.

The flick: When a Man Falls In the Forest provides a glimpse into the unavoidable and desperate moments of isolation that we all experience. Whether it's the reclusive custodian (Dylan Baker) who works the night shift, the wife (Sharon Stone) who takes to shoplifting to cope with an unhappy marriage, the husband (Timothy Hutton) who avoids his wife by working late, or the friend (Pruitt Taylor Vince) who is frozen in time after a tragic accident, everyone has their cross to bear. When life compels these characters to take action, their individual fates will be decided by the choices they make, the people they care for, and the passion that remains. Beautiful and haunting, When a Man Falls in the Forest reminds us all that even when we feel most alone, we are not.

See it: Monday, April 15th

Read Ryan's responses to our Big Three Questions below!

What movie character would you like to meet for drinks?
Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. I would love to listen to his philosophy on life.

What historical time period would you visit and adapt into a film?
I would visit the pre-Paleolithic period. It would be interesting to make a film about a time when language was not fully realized in humans. The story would have room to focus more on the environment and a human being's place in the environment rather than interpersonal relationships.

What is the one thing that surprised you the most about making When a Man Falls In the Forest?
Many people seemed to think that it is a "midlife crisis" film. In fact, all of the characters are far beyond the point of having a midlife crisis. A midlife crisis originates from a place of anxiety about having lived a full and complete life; hence the reason people buy sports cars, etc. What comes next, after the midlife crisis has passed, is much more interesting to me. That is the focus of the film.

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