EXCLUSIVE: Film Shortage releases ‘The Actor’ by Alexander Hagani

15 October 2026 | By Molly Lipson

NYC based director Alexander Hagani’s new short The Actor has been released on Film Shortage. It follows Anne as she makes her way to the biggest audition of her life. However, an increasingly ridiculous series of mishaps threaten to derail the opportunity, highlighting the absurdity of hustling for work in the creative world, and the freelancers, actors, writers, and artists who somehow keep going when absolutely nothing goes according to plan.

“A lot of the film was inspired/written while I was doing a one-year directing program at The Barrow Group in NYC,” Hagani says. He met the whole cast of the film there, and used The Barrow Group as the location for every scene in the short. For the running shot in the film, the crew had to be creative. “We had no ability to block off the street. Our DP, Stefan Nachmann, popped out of my car's sunroof with the camera while our producer, Caleb Barron, drove down two of Midtown's busiest streets and we shot three takes while the 1st AC and I were in the backseat of the car,” Hagani recalls.

The Actor is a true case of art imitating life and vice versa. You can watch the film below on Film Shortage below.