Swampscott resident Libby Ritchie is making her mark more than 3,500 miles away in Cannes, France this week.

Ritchie’s seven-minute, short film, Spread, is a part of the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner, where it was screened in France on Wednesday, May 21. It’s a mysterious and comedic short, directed by Boris Undorf. The film was released in March.

“The film is about a family secret, turned heist,” Ritchie said. “Expect the unexpected.”

The 78th Festival de Cannes is running from May 13 to 24. The annual film festival is known for its prestige and wide range showcasing of films. The festival promotes the art of cinema, attracting both industry professionals and film enthusiasts. There are competitive screenings, which are judged by a jury and awarded prizes, as well as non-competitive screenings. Ritchie’s film is part of the latter. 

Her film started as a byproduct of the 48 Hour Film Project, which tests filmmakers to make a movie from scratch in just two days. She said “everyone in the film industry” talks about the project and most compete at least once. 

“So when I was invited to join a talented team by a former agency colleague who was planning on directing it, I knew this was the year…The only things the 48 Hour Film Project allows you to plan in advance are the cast and the location,” Ritchie said. “When the clock starts, the organizers give you a genre, a character, a prop and a single line of dialog that you need to include in the film. They design it so it’s impossible to plan ahead.”

As the film’s editor, Ritchie said her team had to include a rubber band and the line “it’s what we’re known for.”

The team decided to film in Pasadena, California. Some scenes in the film are taken outside, which Ritchie said added some drama to the production.

“You have to contend with the usual audio intrusions like cars and airplanes. You don’t want that in the background of your dialog. We hadn’t planned on contending with the Pasadena Parrots,” Ritchie said.

Flocks of birds squawked from the distance and grew louder as they flew overhead, landing in trees around the filming crew. 

“The lore is that some of these parrots escaped from a pet store years ago,” she said. “Some production crews even hire falconers to scare the parrots away so they don’t have to contend with the noise. When they visited us, we had to do retakes, while we were losing daylight. There’s a reason a group of parrots is called a pandemonium.”

Overall, though, Ritchie said the hardest part of the 48-hour work was figuring out what to cut to fit into the seven-minute runtime. 

“With four of us in the same room, it wasn’t easy getting everyone to agree on what should stay and what should go,” Ritchie said. “We constantly had the clock ticking in our heads, knowing every minute that went by was less time we’d have to polish it.”

But now, with the final production complete, the film was selected out of the over 5,000 created through the 48 Hour Film Project to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival. 

“The goal was to have a fun weekend: to come together as a group of creatives with a drive to make something entertaining. But we’re all a little competitive by nature, so knowing a screening at Cannes was on the table, made it extra motivating,” Ritchie said. “As an editor, I’ve had my entire career behind the scenes. That’s how I like it. If you do a good job as an editor, nobody notices your work.  The 48 Hour Film Project was outside my usual experience, but it encouraged me to continue doing creative work.”

Ritchie, who runs a video editing business in Swampscott, has known that she wanted to go into film since she was in high school in Michigan. She took a video production class and had “one of those special teachers who loves what they do and takes an interest in their students.” Three years later, she was still taking classes with the teacher and never thought about doing anything for work beyond editing.

Looking ahead, Ritchie is focusing on her business. She’s edited videos for national brands, such as Staples, Verizon, Planned Parenthood and Pfizer as well as regional organizations like Maine Lobster.

“I’m focusing on my freelance video post-production business, where I split my time between editing and post-production supervision,” Ritchie said. “Aside from that, I’m looking forward to enjoying my first summer fully-settled in as a Swampscott resident.”