HOLLYSHORTS 2026 REVIEW! Loneliness has a way of making you feel like nobody could ever understand what’s happening on the inside, and that’s the ache Olivia Ormond taps into with Call Me Crazy.
Emi (Olivia Ormond) is staying for the night at a roadside motel, carrying the weight of the world on her entire body. She’s staring at a stranger, Ben (David Kopriva), who’s pondering the choices in a half-stocked vending machine. Emi strikes up a semi-flirtatious conversation, and Ben reciprocates. Ben says his motel doesn’t have a pool and asks if Emi would join him in hers. And we’re off.
When they return to Emi’s room, she lets her guard down with Ben in a way she hasn’t with doctors, specialists, or even the people closest to her. She tells Ben about years of being dismissed and misdiagnosed, and for once, someone is actually listening. Ben doesn’t know how to respond, which stops this passionate moment cold.
“Emi is staying for the night at a roadside motel, carrying the weight of the world on her entire body.”
Wow, what a powerful and emotional short film. As Emi, Olivia Ormond just nails this performance. Right from the start, I was locked in on Emi’s plight and the choices she makes. You know everything Emi is thinking and feeling in her eyes and body posture. She just carries us straight through a story that might be a bit predictable but leaves you emotionally devastated by the time it’s over.
Olivia Ormond built Call Me Crazy out of her own experience of living years with chronic pain and a medical system that doesn’t know the answer and pushes her aside as a result. She wanted this short to capture the gap between what’s visible on the outside and what’s actually felt on the inside, while balancing humor and pain. She says Call Me Crazy is both an act of vulnerability and an act of rebellion — a way to reclaim a story that had been dismissed by the very people who were supposed to help.
To me, Call Me Crazy is all about connection, especially for someone who wants to stay distant but needs to feel something at the lowest point of their life. Ormond delivers about as perfect a short film as you get.
Call Me Crazy screened at the 2026 HollyShorts Film Festival.
"…Ormond delivers about as perfect a short film as you get."
