Children often expect their parents and siblings to be completely truthful with them. However, sharing that total honesty with them too early in their lives can ultimately lead to their loss of innocence at too early of an age. That’s certainly the case with the young titular protagonist of the new short film, ‘Sally, Get the Potatoes.’

The drama compellingly explores the emotional struggles that occur in childhood that eventually impact children’s development in adolescence and adulthood. As a result, children often blame their parents for the choices that they made, no matter the context, that they believe negatively impacted their growth. The movie showcases how those choices, which are driven by the intertwining of the isolation of both innocence and knowledge, often leads to failure.

Danicah Waldo wrote, directed and produced ‘Sally, Get the Potatoes.’ Kynlee Heiman, Bohdana Madlova, Clark Carmichael, Quinn Hemphill, Amanda Ferguson, Travis Doughty and Charlie Ferrara star in the short.

‘Sally, Get the Potatoes’ is having its New England Premiere at the Woods Hole Film Festival today at 3:00pm ET at the Redfield Auditorium. The drama’s screening is playing during The Kids Are Alright shorts program at the festival.

Set a few days before Christmas, ‘Sally, Get the Potatoes’ follows the six-year-old eponymous main character as she longs for someone to play with before her family’s holiday party. Unfortunately, her family members are too preoccupied with their own struggles to pay attention to her.

With only a few minutes before their yearly holiday party starts, it becomes clear that everyone in the family is hiding something from Sally. In an effort to get the young girl out of the kitchen, her mother, who is busy cooking, sends her on an impossible mission: to get the potatoes from the pantry.

Sally decides to use the rolling laundry hamper her family’s housekeeper uses to move the heavy load. However, her teenage sister’s clothes distract her from her task. After looking through her sister’s belongings in her room, the young girl must act quickly to prevent getting caught. So Sally decides to jump into the hamper to hide, and embarks on an unintentional journey into adulthood.

Behind the closed doors of each bedroom, the titular protagonist learns the secrets her family has been keeping from her, and from each other. Ultimately, those truths take away any remaining magic and innocence from her world as she contemplates how to best deal with her newly changed existence.

‘Sally, Get the Potatoes’ is a powerful exploration of the maturity the main character inadvertently finds herself driven into as she initially strives to garner a playful connection with her family. Heiman soars in her performance as Sally, as she intuitively embraces the wisdom to realize her family isn’t as happy and carefree as she originally believes.

In the short’s 17-minute runtime, the actress morphs from being a relentlessly charming young girl who’s inspired by the spirit of play to realizing that everyone in her family is hiding secrets from each other. She suddenly comprehends the true meaning of feeling isolated. She now understands the longing for connection in a world in each everyone puts on a façade that they’re truly happy and successful.

The stunning camerawork from the movie’s Directors of Photography, Mike LoBello and Paul W. Sauline, captures the shock that Sally feels as she overhears the secrets her sister, brother and father all reveal. The cinematographers capture the family’s turmoil from the protagonist’s perspective while she’s hidden in the laundry cart. That’s particularly true while she’s looking out from under a pile of clothes through an overlap in the fabric. Beautifully lit close-ups of the anguish on the young girl’s face prove that her family’s socioeconomic standing never lessens relationship complexities between them.

Waldo’s latest effort as a filmmaker proves that while young children at times strive for true connections within their families, receiving total honesty too early in their lives can ultimately lead to their loss of innocence. That’s certainly the case with the young eponymous main character of ‘Sally, Get the Potatoes.’

Through Heiman’s genuine performance that’s vibrantly brought to the screen through LoBello and Sauline’s camerawork, the drama compellingly explores the emotional struggles that occur in childhood. Sally goes through a gripping life-changing experience over the course of the short’s runtime, which proves her innocence has been shattered and her world forever transformed. Overall, ‘Sally, Get the Potatoes’ is exceptional proof of the devastation people feel after they discover the deceptions by the people they love the most.