A Product of My Imagination

An Evening With take us on a journey of discovery in their 2026 entry ‘A Product of My Imagination’. The scene is set with an audible cue that evokes rolling the dice as we peer upwards at corporate structure, a modernist take on SALESMAN via Dorothy hitting the technicolor yellow bricks of Kansas. Only here our cynical fish out of water has been recruited for their apparent ability to innovate through their thoughts.
What unwinds is an intriguing battle of the wits that makes a mockery of the one track masculine mind, and shows that even within a world of endless SEVERANCE-like possibility that singular focus can undermine grandiose plans.
The colour play in the film is sublime with the saturated reds, greens and blues giving us a timeless yet modern feeling to proceedings, whilst the genre gets turned on its head and subverted though the metaphysical black and white mind prison our lead finds themselves in.
It’s better than just an ode to hard boiled Burt Lancaster though, even with food jokes running throughout (thank fuck you didn’t do eggs guys!), as the lady in red gives a pitch perfect voice for women in 2026 that the age of objectification is over.
Comedy is excellent, with witty snappy dialogue and confident performances by all involved. The reasonable person dialogue test compared to reality distortion always gets a laugh out of me. Case in point the medium sized meeting room. Great stuff.
The edit is smooth, and the flow of angles high and low gave the film the pacing it needed to breathe and elevate above its office setting which has been the kiss of death for so many 48 Hours films before. Not here though.
You know you’re splitting hairs on a banger of a film if your only personal thought is if a solid ending could have gone another way. And truth be told I’m glad it went the way it did. The film was never obvious and what else can we ask for but originality in this competition.
Honestly like the protagonist yearning for their sandwich I was salivating at the thought of what this team came up with. If THE MATRIX and BRAZIL are your idea of a neo noir peppered with humorous rib ticklers then you are in for one heck of a tasty. I left the film feeling like I had had all I could eat. Thanks team!

What got my attention
This is a typically slick film from this team, which gets better on subsequent viewings. It’s such a clever, well-executed short with an equally clever punchline that surprised (due to its slow burn in the background) and delighted the live audience at the screening. Faultless cinematography, editing and top-notch performances all-round. The script is witty and tight. Loved the failed concept designs and man, I haven’t seen a working overhead projector in years. A lot of stereotypical detective stories in this genre this year, so great to see neo-noir grasped and taken to different creative places.
Take it or leave it
Hard to fault. I guess the characters are pretty cliché, but that’s also the point no doubt. Does it nail neo-noir? A question for the judges, but it certainly subverts hard so probably not an issue at all!

Final hot air:
Very hard to see this not in the race to win Christchurch and going on to do well nationally. It could effortlessly stand-alone outside the competition and is easily my favourite film I’ve seen from this team. Amazing job. In awe.

As expected from this team, an extremely crisp and well polished film. And with a novel story that was unpredictable and kept the audience engaged.

However, to be honest, I was disappointed with this because it did not really feel like a noir film - the noir elements seemed just a token addition to a film of an entirely different genre - and this is the same genre issue the team fell into last year. Had this team applied their ability to a pure noir film they would have blown everyone else out of the water with the best lighting and videography in the competition - but they missed this opportunity in my opinion.

Ignoring the genre mismatch though, this is an excellent film. I particularly liked the green animations of the ideas on the computer screen, the quality of which demonstrated the attention to detail this team excels at. The acting was also top notch.