Jeff
2025
Directed by: Julia Hebner
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A phone sex operator loses her grip on reality, caught in a hypnotic relationship with a caller making disturbing confessions.
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Jeff is based on a real call I took during the time I worked as a phone sex operator after college. The entire experience was a wild window into the recesses of the human psyche, but this particular call stood out.
The story of Jeff became something I regularly shared at parties, always to a rapt, silent audience. It is rare in life for a narrative to fall in one's lap fully formed-- an experience with a naturally neat beginning, middle, and end, already so full of complexity and metaphor. It begged to be a film.
Julia Hebner
Julia has been a filmmaker for over ten years and a writer for as long as she can remember. Originally from New York, she graduated New York Film Academy’s conservatory program, and is now based in Austin, Texas.
She has led filmmaking workshops at Beijing Film Academy and La Fémis, Paris. She has worked in the camera department on many film, commercial and documentary sets, and spent time as a camera and lens technician.
Her last film, Bad Lobster, won Best Comedy Short at LA Underground Film Forum, Best Actor at Denver Underground Film Festival, and took second place at Short Shorts in Brooklyn.