PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL SHORTFEST 2025 REVIEW! The workplace is rife for comedy, just look at The Office. Filmmaker Cam Banfield’s surreal comedic short film How Was Your Weekend? is about a corporate employee named Steven (James Morosini) who finds himself in a fight to survive Monday morning after breaking the most sacred of office rules: If you don’t have a good weekend, we can’t have a good week.
Steven gets a break-up voice message from his girlfriend while he’s walking into the office, with everyone cheerfully asking the important question, “How was your weekend?” It’s said over and over again as he walks down the halls. Steven starts off by lying and saying that his weekend was great. A look of dread comes over his face as he enters the coffee break room and keeps hearing the same question. Steven is asked again by a female coworker, and he finally snaps, saying it was terrible, spilling his relationship problems. Everyone starts staring at him, and then we hear a deep, ethereal sound emanating from the woman, so he runs.
“…switches back and forth between blood-dripping horror and a pizza party.”
A boss-looking lady named Nancy (Rachael Harris) walks into his office and says, “If you didn’t have a good weekend, we can’t have a good week.” She makes him join a Zoom meeting and tells him to tell the others in the meeting that he had a good weekend, and ask, “How about yours?” It then switches back and forth between blood-dripping horror and a pizza party.
I really enjoyed the surreal nature of How Was Your Weekend? because it takes an attitude that is so real in the workplace and ratchets it up to 11. Both the comedy and horror are quite effective, which is extremely difficult to pull off. Morosini is fantastic at showing the range of emotions, all the way up to animated looks when needed, and Rachael Harris is pitch-perfect as the forceful boss. We’ve all had difficult times at work, and this film lets us have a strange laugh about it.
How Was Your Weekend? screened at the 2025 Palm Springs International ShortFest.
"…the comedy and horror are quite effective, which is extremely difficult to pull off."
