Off Record

Zelda, a rock musician in her 40s, was considered the most influential female artists of our time. Along with her husband Damien, who was hyped up as the voice of our generation, they conquered the rock music scene... Then Zelda cheated on him. Betrayed, depressed, and brokenhearted, Damien committed suicide shortly after... Such is the thinking of an emotional lyricist. After her husband’s death, Zelda goes on a hiatus to write her autobiography, mainly to exorcise her guilt and apologize for her mistakes. She gets an abortion, of which Damien wasn’t the father of. She appears on late-night talk shows and radio interviews to expose her personal struggles and, perhaps inevitably, to announce her plans for her next album – Her final album. The media eat it up. Calling it quits actually helps reviving her credibility as public figure. After the initial frenzy, Zelda moves back to her hometown to recruit a new band for her new album. Through auditioning for her bandmates, she meets Ben, a shy big-fish-in-a-small-pond drummer and a single dad. His young daughter, Jenny, is naive and in love with Zelda’s direct competition. Zelda knows Jenny has a lot to learn, specifically her taste of music. She sees something in the young girl, maybe she sees herself in Jenny, or worse, herself as a mother. Either or, Zelda has a lot to learn as well. After recruiting her team of rockers (Marion, her guitar-goddess sister with a rivalry / Scrawny, a street kid bassist / Ben, the drummer), Zelda sets out to play a fans-only concert. The journey to revive her career seems to go according to plan, until -- A stage spotlight drops directly on Zelda in the middle of the show. The accident of the year sends her to the emergency room and keeps her in a nasty coma... Two months past. Zelda finds herself alive in the hospital with everyone ready to abandon her project... Ben and his daughter Jenny would visit her to give support, but along the way, she even turns little Jenny into an enemy. That’s a thing Zelda tends to do. Everyone eventually gives up on her... Except the stubborn Ben. Without a full band on her side, finishing her project begins to feel like an unrealistic dream. Her creativity is spoiled and her drive is non-existent.. She begins to sympathize with her dead husband’s depression and suicidal tendencies... Maybe a life is not worth living as an artist if you’re uninspired to create? “Off Record” is a story about depression and finding ways to crawl out of that black hole. For Zelda, it’s a long crawl up. But maybe finding the way out isn’t half bad.