Screenplay - final draft

                                                            SEVENTEEN 

          

                       Written by

Sofia Sarfraz

"In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be."  

   - Mary Oliver.

1. EXT. SUNSET.

Sasha, 17, waiting for her friends at a cafe. Sasha, cycling down a road with the Margalla Hills looming over her. Sasha, running through a forest.  

                    

  SASHA (voiceover) 

     In hindsight, it was too ambitious. You don’t realise that as a teenager; the whole world is your oyster. But the cruel world wears away at you, skews your moral compass. (a short pause) I was no different. How do you cope when the gold flakes off your ideals, when the constant erosion of your self drives you to do things you thought yourself incapable of? (a deep sigh) I made a choice, I have to live with it. Simple as that. Fate forces your hand, you live with it. 

CUT TO BLACK

2. INT. BEDROOM. AFTERNOON.

A messy bedroom filled with dusty, open boxes. 

A journal lying on an unmade bed, open on an entry dated 12 years ago. Sasha, 29, gives it a cursory glance and pushes it away with trembling hands. Looks down and notices her trembling hands, which seem to be stained with blood all of a sudden.

                         

                            SASHA 

                (mumbling to herself) 

  I didn’t have a choice, I didn’t, I didn’t……

Looks up to stare at something imagined in the distance, all the while still mumbling feebly to herself. 

FADE IN

3. INT. BATHROOM. NIGHT.

(Seventeen by Sharon Van Etten plays in the background)

Sasha, 29, staring at her hazy reflection in the fogged up mirror with a void expression. Close up of her eyes in the mirror. Dolly out to her reflection as she starts pulling at her face and scrubbing at her skin obsessively, making unintelligible sounds. She wipes away the moisture on the mirror abruptly.