https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/screens/2014-07-04/kickstart-your-weekend-pact/

Kickstart Your Weekend: 'Pact'

By Richard Whittaker, July 4, 2014, 1:52pm, Picture in Picture

In the wake of True Detective, philosophical nihilism has never been more in the public eye. Now Austin-filmed short "Pact" is pondering the uselessness of existence. Perfect for being stuck with all your distant relatives this long, long weekend.

"Pact" is a not-so-far-future science fiction short, where human overpopulation has gone beyond crisis levels. A group called the Pact has started recruiting people to committ suicide, to take a little of the pressure off the environment. In writer/director Zach Endres's story, a door-to-door Pact canvasser (UT alum David Lee Hess) spends his day facing constant rejection. That's when he meets Audrey (Rebecca Karpovsky, star and co-writer of the upcoming queer drama What Doesn’t Kill You.) Unlike everybody else, she actually seems interested in his proposal. But can two people, bound together by an overwhelming sense of alienation, stay alienated for long? Endres explained, "To be lonely when there are so many people in the world is a maddening experience, and I wanted to delve into why this happens, as well as dig into the negative effects of allowing this existence to perpetuate.

Endres has had previous crowdfunding successes, raising $2,608 on Kickstarter for his 2013 short "Shark", and $985 for his Austin Film Festival 2012 student shorts competition audience award winner "The Teleported Man" via Indiegogo (see AFF 2012 Audience Awards Announced, Oct. 30, 2010.)

With 14 days left, this project is just under a third of the way to his biggest goal to date - a still very manageable sum of $5,000. Plus, as a big bonus for donors to either of his last projects, he will automatically upgrade their donation to the next perk level.

You can donate to "The Pact" via their Kickstarter page, like their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pactshortfilm and find out more about Endres' early work at www.zachendres.com.

Kickstart Your Weekend is a series intended to showcase Texas film and tech projects that are crowdfunding their way to a goal, be it distribution, a prototype, or production costs. If you have a project that we should know about, email us at filmflam@austinchronicle.com.