Relative Obscurity

Set and filmed on the campus of Ohio University, RELATIVE OBSCURITY revolves around a group of college students whose lives take surprising-even drastic-turns in their senior year. The film is based on the quote, “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it” by Franz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth. Rosenberg begins with four students getting high in September 2001, after which they watch the events of 9/11. This sets the stage for change, which comes four years later. Sad sack James still pines after Claire, who has made a deep connection with a student from Ghana. Party-girl Zoe and Dylan, together since high school, find they have little in common at a critical juncture in their lives. Other people orbit around these folks, with mixed personal results. The characters puzzle out the futures they thought they had, and the present conditions that demand immediate action. Lives are threatened, love blooms, reality checks. –A.S.