Cigarette Candy
Directed by: Lauren Wolkstein
Drama | 2008 | 13 mins

About the film: Cigarette Candy tells the story of Eddie Van Buren, a traumatized teenage Marine who is forced to play the role of 'the hero' at his homecoming party. In pursuing a rebellious, precocious sixteen-year-old girl, Candy, he sees an opportunity to numb his pain and connect to a fellow lost soul. Cigarette Candy is not a war story, but a story of lost innocence – a boy forced too soon into adulthood.
However, this story is also about the hope that exists in unexpected places, even when it seems that all hope is lost forever.

Screening Times @ Sinclair
7:30PM Wednesday, June 15 (Shorts Block 2)
5:30PM Thursday, June 16 (Shorts Block 2)
5:30PM Saturday, June 18 (Shorts Block 2)

About the Director: Lauren Wolkstein (director) was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland by her mother, a schoolteacher, and her father, a colonel in the Air Force who served in several wars, including the Gulf War and the current Iraq War. Lauren received her B.A. in computer science from Duke University and won the Duke Undergraduate Filmmaker Award. Lauren lived in Los Angeles for a year assisting film producer Chris Hanley at Muse Productions (The Virgin Suicides, American Psycho, Buffalo '66). She is one of the recipients of the 2007 Lifetime Movie Network Student Filmmaker Award for her first short film at Columbia, We Three. Her last short film, Dandelion Fall, won awards at several film festivals last year and was picked up for distribution by Wolfe Releasing. Lauren will graduate from Columbia University's School of the Arts in May 2010 with an M.F.A. in Film Directing. Brigitte Liebowitz (producer) received the RHI Entertainment Producers Development Award for Cigarette Candy, and the film is fiscally sponsored by IFP. Lauren is currently writing and developing two feature films.