Excess Pizza: Memoirs of a Tree-Planter is about Elliot coming back to reality, after a summer of tree planting. While I was planting this summer I interviewed my entire camp on their experience, I created a loose narrative out of their responses. This film is about the dichotomy of living in a world filled with comforts and pleasures, yet feeling lonely and removed from a seemingly shallow society. It’s about missing the intensity of planting, missing the inner animal, and missing not being able to get pizza.
ACTOR 1:
ELLIOT
The sole character in this film, Elliot keeps his head down and walks slowly, placing one foot in front of the other. He is tentative and quiet, soft-spoken and invisible. There’s a lot going on in the world and he has trouble being apart of any of it, he is somewhere else. Memories of bears stepping on his tent, and finding moose bones in the land asks him to question his own morality. Memories of snow, then rain, then snow, then rain, seem so raw and present while sitting in his comfortable living room with carpeted floors and heat.
