Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie
Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie is short documentary that was made by Jonathan Van Bellenberghe who is a filmmaker in America. The short documentary is a 13 minute long production that was premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on the 19th of April in 2013. Jonathan Van Bellenberghe’s short documentary was produced by Open Lens Productions with an estimated budget of $10 000.
The Inspiration behind the Short Documentary
Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie was inspired by an awakening within the filmmaker, Jonathan Van Bellenberghe. When the filmmaker turned 36 years old, he came to the realization that he had been addicted to gambling for more than one third of his life. He decided that his gambling addiction was a problem and embarked on a mission to end his problem of gambling addiction once and for all.
What the Short Documentary Entails
Jonathan Van Bellenberghe decided that to fix his problem he would first enter into psychotherapy and then make a short documentary film about his experience. Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie was then created.
The 13 minute long short documentary, Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie, is a personal account of one man’s broken state of mind while in the grips of a crippling gambling addiction. While in his psychotherapy sessions, Jonathan Van Bellenberghe recorded all of the dialogue which had been edited but included whole honestly into the short personal documentary. It is the only dialogue heard in the film.
Composer, Jason Sebastian Russo, composed all of the original music in the 13 long minute documentary. The additional tracks that are heard on the documentary’s soundtrack are songs that were supplied by the bands Hopewell and Common Prayer.
At the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival
Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie fell into one of eight programmes for the short films selection at the Tribeca film Festival in 2013. American Express, who are the founding sponsors of the Tribeca Film festival presented the event. The 2013 festival saw a record number of entrants with a total of 60 short films in the line-up with half of them being world-wide premieres. The documentary programme called Character Witness featured short documentaries that were presented in the first person perspective. The theme of these short films were to be focuses on life events that affected life, death and the time in between.
Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie, focused on a gambling addict who confronts his addiction, went up against other shorts featuring stories told of survivors after the Tohoku tsunami and precious collectables an old lady cherished through her life time and what happens to the items after her death.
The best short documentary and narrative was awarded consideration for the short films category at the upcoming Annual Academy Awards. The considerations would qualify without having to have the customary theatrical run of the film as long as those considered followed all of the other rules that are set out by the Academy.