Parity Pipeline

Parity Pipeline

The Truck

Directed by Liz Rao

Against the simmering anxieties of post-Roe America, Jo, 16, and Arash, her boyfriend, attempt to buy the morning-after pill in a small town where reproductive rights are contested and quietly policed.

  • ABOUT
  • BIO
  • SCREENINGS
  • AWARDS
  • PRESS
  • CREDITS
  • GALLERY

Bio

Rao was recently named Vimeo Breakout Creator of the Year 2025 and is a Gotham-nominated feature filmmaker, and award-winning short film Writer and Director, with premieres at Sundance, Berlinale, Telluride, The Museum of Modern Art, Tribeca, SXSW and more. On scholarship, Rao recently completed her MFA in Screenwriting and Directing, at NYU Grad Film.

Her award-winning Oscar-qualified short fiction film as Writer-Director, THE TRUCK, is a Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere, and Director’s Notes Premiere, with an audience of nearly 200k and counting.

The Truck” World-Premiered at Telluride, screened at MoMA, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Oscar-qualifying Florida Film Festival, won Best Screenplay at Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, screening in more than 50 festivals and counting, worldwide. Liz Rao is a Hear Us Awardee and Ouray Film Sabbatical Inaugural Fellow developing her debut feature, a thematic cousin to “The Truck”.

Her work is supported by top awards from The Future of Film is Female, Fusion Film Award, NYU Kings Award, the Clive Davis Award, the Yunni & Maxine Pao Memorial Scholarship, the Willard T.C. Johnson Fellowship, and the Jonathan Laxamana Emerging Filmmaker Award. Rao has given artist talks at Yale University, Mount Holyoke College, The Gotham Fiction Feature Lab, The Edit Center, UnionDocs, and has taught workshops at True/False Film Festival. Rao is a proud member of A-Doc and Brown Girls Doc Mafia.

Screening History

World Premiere - Telluride Film Festival

SCREENING MoMA: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Edinburgh International Film Festival (UK Premiere), Encounters Film Festival, Aesthetica Short Film Festival

Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, Santa Barbara international Film Festival (West Coast Premiere), HollyShorts Film Festival, WME FUTUREFEST

Sun Valley Film Festival

Awards History

WINNER, Florida Film Festival - Grand Jury Award, Best Narrative Short, Oscar-Qualifying Award

WINNER, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival - Best Screenplay

WINNER, Bend Film Festival - Jury Prize

WINNER, Edinburgh Short Film Festival - Best Film

WINNER, Fusion Film Festival - First Place, WINNER, NYU First Run Film Festival - Second Place

Press

"Spike Lee, Joan Chen Board Liz Rao’s Short ‘The Truck,’ a Post-Roe Thriller, as EPs‍, "Liz Rao’s The Truck is an urgent, gripping look at teen love and the freedom to choose in this America right now""
The Hollywood Reporter
"Our narrative award went to Elizabeth Rao’s “The Truck,” a film that works in both the micro and the macro, telling a story of two teenagers (Shirley Chen & Daniel Zolghadri) trying to obtain a morning-after pill in an area of the country where that’s becoming increasingly difficult. Beautifully shot and tenderly performed, it’s a special short.""
Roger Ebert.com
"Blends the romance of Americana—open roads, convenience-store lights, dusty afternoons—with the lurking menace of a country tightening its grip on bodily autonomy. Verdict: A Quiet Thunderbolt. The Truck feels like a fuse lit at exactly the right cultural moment. 10/10.”"
Arts Muse Magazine
"Elizabeth Rao, writer-director of live-action short “The Truck,” about a young couple trying to obtain morning-after pills in a post-Roe vs. Wade America, secured one of her professors, Spike Lee, and Joan Chen as EPs...Chen adored the “emotional intimacy” of Rao’s work, “how honest the performances feel, and how her writing builds tension"
The Los Angeles Times
"A Teenage Couple’s Young Love Meets a Harsh and Unsettling Morning After in Liz Rao’s ‘The Truck’"
Director’s Notes

Credits

Jo - Shirley Chen

Arash - Daniel Zolghadri

Mason - Garrett Richmond