SYNOPSIS
When twenty-something Rudy is pressured by her boyfriend Zane to move in together there is only one problem... She’ll have to tell her best friend and roommate Sofia, who’s just been brutally dumped, that she’s moving out. Knowing she’s supposed to sign her new lease in the morning, the pressure is on for Rudy to decide. Either move into a lovely townhome with her boyfriend or stay in her crappy apartment with her hysterical best friend who needs her.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
My Approach with this film is to showcase the specificity of intimate, platonic female relationships and how they can be more meaningful than romantic ones in a way that is fun, quirky and emotional. Rudy and Sofia, two women nearing their 30’s, are still living together despite the fact that it’s probably time they learned to live without each other and become “real adults”. Inspired by my own relationship with my Best friend, I’ve found that no matter how much pressure I feel to find “the one” I’ve felt lucky to realize that perhaps she’s “the one” and that’s ok. I think it’s beautiful.
As a woman I’m constantly feeling like I’m supposed to put myself out there and settle down and just pick someone, but I know what “just picking someone” looks like and I see that it doesn’t end well when you're not careful. A lot of men, from my experience, are more than eager to get married and have kids. On the other hand, despite stereotypes, I know even more women who are scared to death of that, and in fact find more joy in their friendships than their romantic relationships. I don’t see enough of that represented in film and television. It exists but I want to see it pushed more. This is what I’m most excited about with how we’ll be doing this film.
Inspired by films like Frances Ha, Superbad and Lady Bird, I’m extremely interested in dynamic characters and relationships through comedy. I’ve purposely set the film in a singular location because there’s something thrilling in how much drama and tension a film can achieve with just two people in a room. That and it’s a lot more cost effective when you have a limited budget. Doing this allows me as the director to really work with the actors to create engaging and meaningful character blocking to help tell the story visually. Despite my clear love for dialogue I am a true believer that the dialogue is the icing on the cake and not the whole meal. Having come from animation as a story artist, I am a very visual director. I look forward to crafting this story visually with the Cinematographer and Production Designer using storyboards and heavy pre-visualization.
TEAM BIOS
WRITER/DIRECTOR
PORTLYNN TAGAVI
Portlynn Tagavi is a Persian Creole writer/director. Originally working as a story artist in animation for Paramount, Psyop, the Jim Henson Company, and DreamWorks, Portlynn then went on to develop herself as a live-action director at AFI (2019) where she received her MFA. Her award-winning short film THEY WON’T LAST has been recognized by festivals such as Bentonville Film Festival, Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival, HollyShorts Film Festival, Prague International Indie Film Festival, the BAFTA Shortlist, and College Television Awards - (Best Comedy Short Winner). Currently, Portlynn is working on her feature as well as numerous shorts.
Producer
Greg Schroeder
Gregory M. Schroeder completed his MFA in Producing from AFI Conservatory in 2019. He produced the sci-fi/horror short PROGENY (2019), and fantasy/comedy short WITCHIN' (2019), which have won dozens of awards and screened at prestigious film festivals worldwide. In 2020, Gregory produced the short film LIKE FLYING, which has been distributed by Dedza Films and The Criterion Collection. Since 2021, Gregory has worked as a producer and writer/director with Echobend Pictures and the Open Light Film Collective.
Cinematographer
TJ Thickett
TJ Thickett is a Los Angeles-based Cinematographer working in narrative films and commercials. Before entering the MFA program at The American Film Institute Conservatory he worked in the San Francisco, bay area for six years. He is the Cinematographer of several award-winning short films including Progeny, Now is a Bad Time, This Is War and The Proceedings. TJ is always searching for new and exciting projects to collaborate on and is especially passionate about genre filmmaking using a story-first approach to cinematography in an effort to elevate films to the best that they can be.
Production Designer
Kelly Stark Reckert
Kelly Stark is a graduate of Drew University in New Jersey, where she earned a BA Studio Art. She started her film career in New York City working with the Marla Weinhoff Studio with clients including Vera Wang, Carolina Herrera, Lady Gaga and Beyonce. She has worked in all areas of the art department, including as props assistant for Dir. Andrea Arnold's Jury Prize-awarded American Honey (2016), Set Decorator for Ink Master Season 12 and as Production Designer on Meghan Trainor's music video My Kind of Present and Art Director for Diplo's latest music video. After having worked for 9 years in New York on everything from photo shoots and events to commercials and films, she now lives and works in Los Angeles. Kelly's work is detail oriented, and she especially enjoys bringing sets to life through careful consideration of their context and characters. Kelly has recently become a member of IATSE Local 800.
Editor
Camilla Bartoli
Camilla is a film editor based in Los Angeles. She was born in Italy and grew up between France, China, the USA, and the UK. She recently received her MFA in Post Production Editing from the American Film Institute Conservatory. Camilla has worked as an editor and assistant editor on a variety of projects ranging from award-winning short films, music videos, to indie feature films. Before attending AFI, she freelanced for Create Productions, had work experience from companies such as Whisper Films and ENVY Post-Production, and was Head of Post-Production for rhubarbTV (university TV station).
DONATE
FUNDRAISING DEADLINE: May 15, 2022
SHOOTING DATES: May 20TH - May 22nd, 2022
DONATION CREDITS
Donations of certain levels will receive a special credit at the end of the film:
[ Benefactor ] $50 - $449
[ Partner ] $450 - $999
[ Sponsor ] $1,000 - $4,999
[ Executive Producer ] $5,000 - $10,000