Every once in a while, I come across a film that feels as if it has been made especially for me. That happened most recently at this year’s joyous in-person installment of my wife Rebecca Martin Fagerholm’s Cinema Femme Short Film Festival held at Chicago’s historic Music Box Theatre. As soon as Bridget Frances Harris’ “Places of Worship” began, I immediately found myself identifying with its teenage heroine, Steph (revelatory newcomer Virginia Alonso-Luis), as she dutifully goes about her assigned role at church and her job at a movie theater, all the while wrestling with the budding feelings she has for her friend, Joanna (Megan Wilcox).
Then comes an indelible sequence that is set in the cavernous main theater at the Music Box, as Steph watches images flickering on the screen of women being intimate with one another. Harris deftly portrays Steph’s sexual awakening through inspired dashes of surrealism, such as a startling encounter with the Virgin Mary, while Alonso-Luis anchors us in every intricately nuanced step of her character’s inner journey. Judging by the enthusiastic reception the film received at its Cinema Femme screening, it felt entirely fitting that “Places of Worship” went on to win the Audience Award, though the honor I am determined to one day help make a reality is getting the film screened in the big theater at the Music Box. It is a cinematic experience any fan of the venue won’t want to miss.
Prior to the film’s highly anticipated screening this month at the Palm Springs ShortFest, I had the pleasure of interviewing Harris and the New York-based Alonso-Luis via Zoom for Cinema Femme about their unforgettable collaboration.
How did you both find each other and in what ways do you feel your sensibilities connected, both artistically and otherwise?
Bridget Frances Harris (BH): Virginia and I grew up together in Las Vegas. Our high school was a theatre school, and when I was a senior, I was part of the student tutor block.
Virginia Alonso-Luis (VL): I was a freshman at the time, and all those student TAs were, at least as I experienced them, a massive deal.
BH: I felt the same way when I was a freshman as well. I would idolize them because they were the most talented people.
VL: I actually didn’t fit in with a lot of the theatre kids. I was really involved in the visual arts crowd, and I didn’t know anyone even took note of me in the theatre department until Bridget reached out about this film.
BH: It had been years since I graduated, but I stayed connected with people from high school on Instagram. I was having a really hard time casting the film, honestly. I met some amazing actors through a formal casting process, but I didn’t feel like anyone had the sensibilities that were needed for the role. I just can’t imagine this film without Virginia.
VL: I can’t imagine it without Bridget, but Bridget wrote and directed it, so that goes without saying! [laughs]
BH: I had a year-long preproduction process with my cinematographer David Foy and my producer Katelyn Henslin, whom I met in 2021. It basically took a year to apply for grants, get funding and workshop my original script because we knew that it was a really ambitious project, and that it would cost a lot of money. We knew that it wasn’t something that we could just haphazardly throw together. It wasn’t until the fall of 2022 that we shot the film. Virginia and I didn’t actually connect until the week before the shoot, and it was a very last-minute casting choice. I went to Instagram and was sending people Direct Messages, asking them, “Can you put this on tape as soon as possible?” Eventually, I was like, ‘Virginia, fly out here! You’re it!’
VL: When I received the message where you asked me to read for this film, I was really honored. I was like, ‘Okay, woah, this is the real deal.’ The script was so intimate, lovely and subtle and the fact Bridget asked me to read for it was a huge sign of trust to me.
BH: All of the people I cast, immediately upon reading the script, had something unsolicited to say that made me realize that they understood the script. Seeing how the script resonated with them was important because it was such a touchy topic, and I didn’t want to cast anyone who misunderstood or misconstrued it. To have confirmation that people were picking up what I was putting down was really nice.
When did you first conceive of the idea for the film?
BH: That’s a great question, honestly. I knew that I wanted to write about a queer relationship. The script originally started as something more serious and it wasn’t working. It just didn’t feel authentic. Then I started thinking about all of the paranoia I felt as a queer person, and how that follows you around. I really love surrealism, and wanted to utilize it in order to translate those feelings. The film ended up being kind of funny and absurd, in a way, and I honestly don’t really remember where the actual ideas came from in terms of the specifics. I just remember having to rewrite each of the hallucinations and surreal moments until they felt right.
Virginia, is this your first credited acting role on film?
VL: When I was a small child, I was a contestant on the Latin American “The Voice” for children, which is called “La Voz Kids.” I don’t know if that counts since it’s definitely a different set environment, and “Places of Worship” is the first script I have done for film. Outside of this, I have mostly done theatre acting, but I have a great appreciation for film. I try to watch a movie once every week, which is a lot to do, but there are things that are communicated in film that are unique to film. In the case of “Places of Worship,” I thought that the cinematography and, for instance, the Music Box scene really invoked that sense of being watched and the male gaze in the presence of lesbianism and sapphic relationships, which I think Bridget is motioning when she talks about the paranoia of being a queer person. Those were things that really drew me to the script and made it a pleasure to film.
Virginia wrote a beautiful post on Instagram about the first film I ever saw in a theater, Disney’s animated “Cinderella,” which she says is, in essence, about “a girl who wants to, for just one night in her entire life, feel special.” To what extent would you liken that sense of yearning to what Steph experiences when viewing the women on the screen and subsequently encountering Mary, who is a sort of Fairy Godmother?
BH: It’s true! I had never put those words together in regard to that character, but it makes so much sense.
VL: I see those parallels too! First of all, I adore Cinderella. She may be my favorite of the princesses in the Disney canon. In “Places of Worship,” my character Steph comes off as having a very timid, fragile way about her that needs to be re-empowered by this person of mythological proportions. So in a way, the scene where Steph sucks the breast of the Virgin Mary is, for sure, a fairy godmother scene.
How did you, Bridget, and your cinematographer David Foy go about lensing my personal favorite place of worship, the Music Box Theatre, which feels like its own otherworldly realm as the camera glides without a visible cut from the lobby and into the theater?
BH: It is actually one Steadicam shot that follows Steph from the lobby to her seat in the theater. We did end up cutting back and forth so we could see what she was looking at on the screen. Most of the film is shot on a 40mm, and it provides just enough distance for you to see some detail of emotion playing out in relationship to the space. It goes a little beyond the 50mm in terms of scope, which I really loved. Dave and I have been going to this theater for seven years, just like you and Rebecca, so we know the space inside and out, and there is a potential energy created when you don’t cut, which is something we kept in mind.
I also knew that I wanted to show Steph sweeping the popcorn because I think it is so funny. I didn’t work at a movie theater, but I did work at Bed, Bath & Beyond in high school, which is just as terrible. There is something funny, sad and endearing about high schoolers with jobs. High school is so hard, and I know there is a lot of media out there for it, but I think the hardest part is all of the responsibilities you have at that age. We see the jobs this young person has both at church and the movie theater. There’s just so much going on and you have all this responsibility, but you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. By showing Steph closing up the theater, I wanted to convey how this isolated being is doing her job in this grand place, while pondering what it would be like to transition into that world on the screen. So it was kind of a no brainer in terms of how we plotted it out.
VL: It was a really intense scene to shoot. I recall Bridget telling me, “Sweep the popcorn like you don’t know how to sweep it, like it really is your first job.” Steph is this character who I feel is very awkward, gangly, and overwhelmed by the world. When you go into the Music Box by yourself, it is huge in there. It feels so massive and it was really important for me to convey how big not just that space is, but the world at large is, and what moving through it feels like when you are stimulated by things that are greater than you, by things that you don’t understand—I think, in this case, her sexuality.
BH: One of the happy accidents is when Virginia kind of disappears into the chair because her shirt is the exact same color as the seats. I knew that I wanted those polos because it was contrasty in the bathroom and I liked the color, but I didn’t think too deeply about it. When we got into the theater, and I saw the way that you sunk down just enough until it looked like you became a part of the seats, it was such a nice surprise.
The expression on Virginia’s face as she sits down into her seat is I imagine exactly how I looked when I stumbled upon “The Dreamers” playing on HBO when I was a teenager. It was the scene where Eva Green strips and is pulling down Michael Pitt’s underwear. I kept waiting for the camera to cut away and it never did. As a repressed Catholic boy, I was surprised to find myself as turned on by the male nudity as I was the female nudity, which made me connect all the more with what Steph is experiencing in this moment.
BH: I connect with it one hundred percent as well.
VL: I think that moment is meant to capture Steph’s mixture of obsessive, paranoiac self-disgust and interest. She’s like, ‘Ew…wait…’ When I was shooting the scene, a big feeling that I was going through as the character was, “What even is this?” Especially when you think about how, in these really strict, Catholic environments, people don’t even really know how sex works. They have a vague idea that it’s a thing that people do that feels good, but is bad, but they don’t know the anatomy of it or the motions of it, and it to see it in front of themselves suddenly is a shock.
What has the experience been like of having your film screen at its first festivals?
BH: We had our world premiere in Florida before screening at NFFTY [National Film Festival for Talented Youth] in Seattle, the Cinema Columbus Film Festival in Ohio, and Cinema Femme at the Music Box. Our next screening, which I am really excited about, will be at the Palm Springs ShortFest, which runs from June 18th through the 24th. The reception for the film at every screening has been very different and interesting, across the board. I feel like I’m watching the film again newly depending on who is in the audience.
Florida had a much older crowd, and I couldn’t tell what the reaction was, to be honest. I didn’t really get any feedback, and I was like, ‘Aw man, maybe everyone hates this.’ Then when we went to the festival in Seattle, which is for filmmakers between the ages of 18 and 24, there was uproarious laughter during the screening. Both experiences were certainly informative, and I feel like I learned a lot. It’s really validating to see other people pick up on the things that you personally found funny.
VL: I have not had the privilege of watching a live screening yet. I’m a little terrified because a lot of film shows me being confused and aroused and vulnerable. But I think it’s exciting when a movie is divisive and doesn’t sit right with everyone.
BH: At the Cinema Femme screening, I said, “I don’t really care about what people who like my film think, I want to know what people who don’t like it think.”
Virginia really does come across as a natural in this, and it is her performance that anchors the film in an emotional reality that many viewers will find relatable.
VL: Oh, that is incredibly kind! Acting, especially film acting, is one of my long-term goals. What’s important to me is that the stories that I am privileged to be involved in telling are personal, intimate and honest. The medium can vary. I like singing, I like playing the guitar, I like acting, I like painting. As long as the story is true, I feel very committed to the medium, and going into “Places of Worship” specifically, I was really excited. At the time, I was in school studying acting, and I was messaging one of my professors the whole time who had taught the Suzuki method, which has a lot to do with the way that you operate your body.
The script is very minimal in terms of dialogue, so I felt like I was spending a lot of time thinking about how to have an energetic presence in a given space. I spent a lot of the process thinking about the intention and presence of movement—all of those generic, pretentious theatre words, but that process is really exciting to me. I know that some people may find it kind of silly, the extent to which actors get into their thing, but I’m a huge nerd for it, so I got to geek out a little during the production with that.
BH: But without any of that, the film wouldn’t read or land. Everything in it is about body language. Something that David said to me early in the process was that I, as the writer and creator, don’t need to impose an opinion about the church onto this film. People are going to come to their own conclusions. Just holding the space for the setting to exist is going to be enough to translate what I’m saying. We don’t need as much words, we just need bodies in space, and bodies relative to their environment. It is such an environmental film that getting the locations, putting people in those spaces and having them interact with the environment was half the job. I was never interested in the typical sort of ingenue types. I like to champion the underdog. We do root for Steph, and it was so important that this person was endearing and someone we understood.
VL: And to build upon that, I don’t really think it is a story about the church, anyway, even though the church is a huge part of the story. I think it is great when there are stories about systems, and of course, when there are stories centering on people in systems, they inadvertently must be about those systems as well. But I think this film takes a more personal approach. We want to see this person, and that’s who we follow, so instead of coming outside in, like system into person, it comes more inside out. Focus on this person, and you can contextually derive all of the other information.
I love how much you leave up to the viewer’s interpretation, such as the image we see materialize on Steph’s bedsheet after she masturbates. How important would you say that approach is in causing your film to linger in the minds of viewers?
BH: I may get a slap on the wrist from film people by saying this, but some of my greater interests are television shows like “Atlanta” and “Ramy.” I love episodic dramas with slightly surreal elements that cause you to question what is real. I love living in that liminal space, and I think having that kind of unsaid-ness really echoes what this character is going through, as she’s asking herself, “What the fuck is happening?” I want the audience to feel that as well because that is exactly what is happening in this person’s head. The stranger it is for them as well as for us, the more we can meet in the middle.
VL: I grew up really enjoying watching things like Don Hertzfeldt and Alejandro Jodorowsky movies, and I am trying to do some fun, weird stuff of my own. I really love, for lack of a better term, abstract performance art. There is something really vulnerable, beautiful and endearing about the total sincerity of stories that don’t make it their main intention to be understood. I do have a soft spot for things like surrealism and magical realism. Don’t get me wrong, I love a straight play or script. I love when things make sense, but stuff like this really appeals to me too.
What sort of tone did you and composer Frey Michael Austin want to strike with the film’s mysterious score, which creates such an interesting tension during the fantasy sequences?
BH: I met Frey through McKenzie Chinn. I was in McKenzie’s film, “A Real One,” and Frey did the score for it. McKenzie and Frey also co-founded the Growing Concerns Poetry Collective. I knew that I wanted a composer with a less traditional background when it came to the type of music they created. I wasn’t interested in violins or piano. I knew that there was an alternative sound, and I honestly think that the main inspiration for me was the organist at the Music Box who performs prior to the screening. It created a parallel between the organ in the movie theater and the organ in church. I liked having a vintage sound that had a quirkiness to it.
Frey does a lot of synthesizer work and is truly a wizard at their craft when it comes to all of the different instruments that they play, and so after following their work on Instagram, I reached out to them. McKenzie’s film was the first one that they scored, and it kind of felt kismet that they were looking for more work. As two queer people, we really bonded over that and it was definitely tricky to find the sounds. But I feel like once we did and kind of understood how the visual language paired with the sound, it really elevated the whole movie. It feels like a very different film without any of the music, or just the sound design in general.
The amount of preparation you need to do in order to be intuitive in the moment is something I feel that any artist can relate to.
VL: Bridget, David and I are all perfectionists. The interesting thing is there was never a sense of, at least for me, overwhelming anxiety on set ever. Everybody had specific goals and wanted things to be clear and good, and there were moments where there would be tension about something. For instance, we are filming in a church and had one hour for the sun to be good, all the while having many other components to take care of. I remember us having to problem solve, but the production team was so efficient and skilled that it seemed like every problem that popped up was almost immediately resolved.
BH: The fact that this film basically took two years to make from preproduction to post was both a benefit and a downfall. It was a very long post period as well, and there is a grief in wanting to move on to something else. At the same time, this film would not have happened without all of the preparation that we did, and I think there is something to be said about the patience that we had in the preparation. We talked through everything with Katelyn and David, which is why our principal photography was so easy. We had done all of the preparation that we needed, and it’s when you’re filming the scene in real time that the improv of it all comes in. If the moment’s not working, you have to pivot, but we had created a container for us to find the moment because there weren’t fires to put out.
I told my cast, “I can’t act for you. Your job is to show up onset and feel as confident as you can, so do all the prep work that you need to do. Show up, know your lines and know this story so that we can just have fun.” Because being unprepared is not fun. It doesn’t allow you the creativity and the freedom because you’re trying to claw your way to the moment rather than have it in your body. I feel that was honestly the greatest success was having a team of actors who were prepared and ready to have fun. I don’t think many directors get the rehearsal time that they want, or know how to prepare actors to show up onset and be confident. It’s scary to show up onset and see thirty people that you don’t know, along with all of this equipment. Everyone is moving at their own pace, so when you show up prepared, you get to be the calm in the storm. That’s what was delivered by everyone on this film, which is something that I want to continue practicing on my other projects.
VL: There was this uniquely euphoric experience that I’ve never before had, which was shooting a scene once, shooting it twice, shooting it a third time, and then everyone was like, “Oh yeah. Let’s just do one more in case.” That was one of the most euphoric feelings when I sensed that everyone had a consensus about the third take being “the one.”
BH: These locations also took a long time to light. They were large locations and our setup times were lengthy, so by the time we got to our shoot times for each setup, we did a minimal amount of takes. I think every scene we have is either three or four takes, with the exception of the Steadicam shot in the Music Box. That is the only shot that we filmed that day, so we were prepared to do twelve takes, which we did. But with everything else, we did not have the luxury of going for the tenth take. There was a lot to get done and get lit in these giant spaces.
When Katelyn and I begged on our knees to shoot in the Music Box, they told us that Amazon and HBO had come in to do some stuff for TV shows, but I hadn’t seen any of it. At the end of the day, you’ve got to ask for what you want. It was pretty bold for me to write the hardest locations for us to film in, but you’d be surprised to see what you can get just by asking, connecting with people, sharing your vision and telling them why you want to do it. Haggling was also important because we did not have a ton of money.
VL: I recall asking Bridget, “How did you get this location?”. She said, “I asked,” and I was like, ‘Oh word, okay!’ [laughs]
BH: The Music Box is such a champion of independent filmmakers, and so I think they understood that we didn’t have the Amazon or HBO budget. They threw a number at us, and we said, “We can’t do that, but we can do this. Is that going to be flexible?” And luckily, it worked. It was at a time where they weren’t hosting a huge festival or anything like that where everything was booked out. We shot on a Tuesday where the first showing wasn’t until 4:30 in the afternoon.
In what ways would you, Bridget, say your background in acting enhances your approach to directing, and for Virginia, how does your work in music enhance your approach to acting? I saw Virginia on Instagram performing a stunning extended note in a venue that she noted had been flooded.
VL: With Bridget, I did feel like I was in really good hands. Obviously, this work deals with themes of sexuality and personal identity, and I felt safe throughout the whole process. I was treated with great care, and so it was easy for me to go in and deal with these subjects that are very personal because I felt like everyone was really supporting me. I also love making music and writing poetry. My stage name is Oeste, which means “the West” in Spanish. My parents are immigrants and Spanish speakers, so I thought it would be funny and a little tongue in cheek if my name was West as in West Virginia.
The venue that you’re referring to was a house show in someone’s massive basement that flooded. My drummer Matt and I were like, ‘Geez, I don’t know if we should risk bringing the drums out here,’ so we did it street performer style. We used a bunch of buckets, and he’s just super-talented, so it totally worked. I think it’s something that we might stick with for certain performances. There is something wonderfully cathartic about singing and about music.
Firstly, you can always return to a catharsis about an old feeling by singing a song that you’ve written in the past, and secondly, when you are performing live in front of an audience, you have this privilege of feeling vicariously through them, just as they are feeling vicariously through you. Communally, it is unlike anything else. In fact, while we’re on the subject of church and Catholicism, when you hear people talk about how they walked into church and it changed their life, I think, ‘Maybe you just like live music. Maybe that changed your life!’
BH: I feel like the whole reason I got into film in the first place is because I was so dissatisfied with the acting roles that I was getting in theatre. After going to theatre school for high school and then DePaul acting school, one of the most renowned in the country and in the midwest too, I felt so disappointed by how people were receiving me as an actor in the theatre space, how long it took to develop a play and how few acting roles there were for me. I was still playing 50-year-old moms all throughout high school and college, and I have such a vendetta and an anger about it that I feel I am still working through. I had been to acting training for nine years and had never played a character my own age until I began making films. I felt that for the first time, people were seeing me and my essence. There was more room for me to be myself, to have more of myself and my intersecting identities of who I am as a person be seen.
But when I was acting in films during college, I didn’t feel like the stories that I was helping tell were very good. It felt like the people with the resources had nothing to say, and weren’t taking the time to approach their work with care and specificity. So I decided to give myself the autonomy to make something on my own, and that’s how it started. I am such a proponent of actors and I know what it’s like to be on camera, so I talk to my actors in the way that I want to be talked to. There are so many directors who don’t act and who have no idea what they’re asking for. I am able to draw upon a combination of skills that I received in school and the coaching I have participated in with friends.
Every time I do an audition, a friend is coaching me. Every time I help someone else with an audition, I am coaching them, at times subconsciously. Even if I am just their reader helping them with their lines, I ask things like, “Ooo, what about this,” or, “How is this coming across?” I want to talk to actors like we’re doing an audition and keep it very casual and actionable. You don’t say things like, “So now, in this moment, you cry.” You also don’t become so preoccupied with the technical stuff that you’re not looking at your actor’s performance. Performance is everything to me. Actors are so important and if the acting is not good, there’s no point in making the movie, in my opinion.
To me, one of the key through lines between a church and movie theater is the community that they foster, though in the case of organized religion, there are limitations to it.
VL: One of the things that is so great about the script for “Places of Worship” is that depending on your interpretation of it, Steph doesn’t necessarily relinquish her spirituality. She leans into God to seek answers for the confusing, embarrassing, uncomfortable feelings that she has, and in a way, her place of worship is just transformed. It may have been a church before, and it may be in another person now. She worships in a more multiplicitous way. It is the worship of someone who you are pining for or the worship within sexual desire, if I may make that interpretation. I want people to read it their own way, but that’s how I read it.
BH: Probably the most successful thing about the film is the fact that you want to root for Steph. Here’s a person who is just finding her autonomy in the world, her own ideas and her own voice. I don’t think it’s realistic that this person would have all the answers about how they feel in regard to the church. I grew up in it and went to Catholic school my whole life. It’s just something that you’re born with and it takes a while to unpack, so I don’t think it would be realistic that this person would be like, ‘Fuck this.’ That’s the thing she knows. So I think it’s more realistic that she’s figuring it out in a very sincere way because otherwise, we wouldn’t root for this person.
VL: Interestingly, the church is almost an afterthought for Steph. She is principally concerned with God and the unknown, the things that she can’t understand, not necessarily with the structure she already has participated in for years.
Tell me about the production company, LBM Pictures, that you founded with your best friend, Lauren Skelton, who directed the wonderful narrative short that you shot, “Little Free.”
BH: I actually met Lauren at DePaul theatre school. We were both in a play together, and we both hated the play, so that was how we bonded. This was before Covid, and throughout the process of making my first film, “Carpool,” we spent a lot of time on Zoom together. Funnily enough, since none of us had gone to film school, she bought a course called Tomorrow’s Filmmakers, which is an online Christian film academy. Our interest in it had nothing to do with the Christianity aspect. It consisted of small, practical videos like ones you’d see on YouTube about certain film topics, so Lauren and I were raised in the church of Christian filmmaking.
After I graduated, I went out to Oregon to shoot “Little Free” for Lauren, and after that, we decided to form a little production company, which is what LBM Pictures is. Now Lauren is almost done getting her second Master’s degree at AFI, and will be making a movie this summer in Ohio. She is my film bro for life. I feel that it is really special to have a collaborator who you can come up with and figure things out with together without having had any prior experience. Now she’s big time because she’s at AFI, but she’s the best and my lifelong collaborator.
What are both of your aspirations for the future in terms of your careers?
VL: I would love to work again with Bridget someday. I am very propelled and have a lot of dreams. In Spanish, there’s a term, “Tengo illusion,” which means, “I have an illusion.” I am interested in making more films that are honest, personal, fun, experimental and unafraid to be divisive but not for the sake of it. I’m interested in releasing an album that I’ve been working on and is very personal to me. The name is still in development, but I’ve been in communication with a very lovely director named Kaylin Skye in the hopes of making a music video for a single I released called “Bad Children.” I ran a Kickstarter for it because it costs money to make art. I’ve had to grapple with the difficulties of how much you have to do as an artist to survive unless you have certain preexisting financial privileges that would make this a very straightforward career for you. But I just try to keep a positive attitude about it and never take for granted the help I have had, which will hopefully lead to more music, movies, writing, directing—I don’t think I’m opposed to anything.
One of the hardest things as a musician and as an actor is wanting the stability of your livelihood and your work, but also wanting to make things that are true and that you don’t feel betray you. I feel really confident about that right now thanks to Bridget, Katelyn, Matt and a lot of the other lovely artists who I am very privileged to work with and learn from. I would really love to write and direct someday. l actually direct children’s theatre as my “day job,” which is a term that I hate. The kids I work with are lovely, creative, imaginative, special people and I’d hate to demean them by even suggesting that they’re of lesser importance. They enrich a lot of the work that I make, and they teach me a lot. I feel that the music I make pertains greatly to my childhood, my past and my nostalgia. Being in touch with the memory of yourself is so important when you are making art, and kids really force you to do that.
BH: People may not realize is what a sacrifice making a film is, both time-wise and financially. I don’t have the financial means to make art regularly. Something I’ve thought about in the long term is sustainability in my career, getting in the rooms with people who do have the money and finding the confidence to ask for what I need. This film is such a hodgepodge of grants and credit card debt. I put myself through so much sacrifice to make this and I am so grateful. I did have an acting agent for a couple of years and left them about a year ago, so I am thinking about how I want to continue acting. I could seek new representation, but I also find so much joy and autonomy in doing it myself and hopping into my own project. If you really love acting, you’ll figure out how to do it, so that’s my goal is to continue challenging myself in writing stories to further the scope of my artistry.
I just want to figure out how to get the things done and be involved in whatever I need to do. I’m going to be the first AD on Lauren’s film this summer, and just being involved in the community is what drives me because otherwise, I would be bored and left to my own devices. The community that you and Rebecca have created with the Cinema Femme Short Film Festival enables us to experience the specificity of connection. It’s nice to go to a festival where you are having real conversations with people who have seen your movie. Two years ago, I met Mary Tilden and Allison Torem at the festival, and this year, we had each of our films screening together and got to hang with our homies. Making movies with your friends, supporting them and watching their work is, to me, more fun than any accolades.
“Places of Worship” screens as part of the 7 Deadly Sins program at 4:30pm PT on Saturday, June 22nd, at the Palm Springs ShortFest. Get your tickets here.
