Connie Shi’s newest short, “The Rebirth,” premiered at Tribeca Film Festival on June 6th. The story follows Hana, a waitress who takes a black market abortion pill in a near-future world where it’s nationally outlawed. Forced to go to work in spite of the abortion taking place, Hana comes to find that the pill has unexpected side effects. I spoke with Connie Shi about her process writing, directing, and acting in this on-the-pulse film, as well as how “The Rebirth” inspires hope and revolutionary zeal in our post-Roe v. Wade society.
I want to start off by saying I loved this film. It’s so evocative and fun and present. I wanted to ask you about your process of getting this project from concept to completion? This feels like your largest scale project thus far. What did getting this made look like in a nutshell?
It definitely was. The idea came from a very personal place. I worked in the bar and restaurant industry for years in New York, and a friend had told me a story about a coworker of hers who needed to get an abortion who wasn’t allowed a day off work. She took the pill and had to go to work and serve customers all night. I kept thinking about that story over the years, and then when Roe v. Wade was overturned, I felt that I had to tell that story with a different kind of ending. I wrote the script really quickly and it felt like a therapeutic and cathartic process.
Afterward I sent it to Stephanie Bonner (one of the producers of the film), and I’ve been working with her for years. She’s a very close friend and she and her partner co-own and manage a number of bars around New York City. So I sent her the script, she read it, and she was like “We can do this. I have a bar, and we can shoot there for free as long as it’s closed.” So of course we ended up having 1a or 2a call times, but we were like “we can do it and we can do it for very little money. Let’s make it happen.”
I got Yuki and Justine involved, who I met doing other projects, and we planned for it to be this small thing. The story is big, but we were expecting to have a pretty small crew because we didn’t have much of a budget. But people came through with favors. They resonated with the script, which meant a lot, and showed that this felt relevant to a lot of people right now. We had all of our G&E equipment donated and we all worked for very little money because it was a passion project for all of us. So the size of it grew even though the budget didn’t grow very much. Our DP, Cece Chan, who is incredible, really made the project look much higher budget than it was. So it was bigger, but it was still actually a very indie project.
That’s amazing. You described the writing process as a very stream of consciousness, got-it-all-out-on-the-page catharsis, so I’m curious how that was as a performer as well, given that you star as Hana. What is it like to step into your written worlds? Of course this isn’t your first time writing and starring in a role, but this feels different. It’s the first time you’ve done so in genre territory, which is new.
You’re totally right it was different. It was different and it was the same because I definitely don’t feel the need to play every character I write. Hana, when I wrote her, just felt so close to where I exist in my own journey. My mom is an immigrant from China, and I think for women in general, we have this process growing up where we’re taught to put our heads down, work hard, don’t rock the boat, and not to question authority – especially in the Asian American community. So for a lot of my life I existed in that way.
It took a long time for me to start coming into my own, recognizing my own strength, and feeling confident to question figures of authority around me. Selfishly, I was also feeling so much frustration and anger about what’s been happening in our country with the assault on women’s rights, and I just felt like playing her would feel good. It felt like I could embody this act of resistance and get some immediate relief that unfortunately is not afforded to us in our regular work and activism. It was really fun and satisfying.
I can absolutely empathize with that. With the genre territory, did anything inspire you to step into that for the first time? Any films/filmmakers, other works of art, or contexts of your own life that lead you there?
Oddly enough when I wrote the script, it just kind of came out of me. I think the supernatural and genre elements came out of the story itself rather than a particular reference. I will say, I love grounded dramas and comedies, but the process of making this and how fun it was to explore this heightened reality and how much deeper you can go into reality when you’re using supernatural elements was really freeing. You can work with score in a new way, VFX, color – it was really freeing as an artist and an actor too. You still have to play everything grounded, so I didn’t really approach it differently as an actor but as a director, it was really exciting.
I loved Nightbitch, Raw, and I saw Love Lies Bleeding at Sundance in 2024 and was like “this is everything.” I loved it so much. I think I’m definitely inspired by those films that get kind of raw and gritty and dirty and deal with the really unfavorable aspects of girlhood and womanhood and lean into that ugliness.
You mentioned the score which is something I loved – the kind of choral nature of it hinting that there are others who exist here. Something else I noticed is that when Hana first starts feeling the effects of the pill in the bathroom, she accidentally punches a hole in the mirror and we get that beautiful shattered portrait that, to me, reads as both a moment of power and fracture. Can you talk about shooting that scene?
That was actually the last scene we shot and we had to do it so quickly. In the weeks leading up to the shoot I had cracked so many mirrors in my apartment because I needed it to be perfect. I didn’t care how much bad luck I was gonna get. In the filming of it though, it had to happen really quickly.
It is a moment that mattered a lot, because when I wrote it and we were talking about the visual language of the film, we really wanted to fracture the different parts of Hana that were emerging. Of course in the beginning, there’s the part of her that’s fearful, timid, and meek, and when she takes the pill there’s the physical pain of the abortion and also this really deep well of strength that’s finally starting to crack through. We tried to separate those in the score as well. The fact that the strength and this part of the body starts to speak on behalf of her, before she mentally becomes aware of it, her body is protecting her. It felt like a really important theme for us to highlight because a lot of us don’t really listen to our bodies or trust our instincts, even when they usually have our best interest at heart.
And speaking of bathrooms, for women and AFAB folks, they can be such vulnerable spaces, as can bars, and we see both of these highlighted in THE REBIRTH and NATURAL DISASTERS – what draws you to set your films in a particular space and how does that affect your writing? You mentioned you worked in the bar scene for years so I’m sure that informed it as well.
I think bars are such an interesting space because they’re a space for socializing, like in “Natural Disasters,” it’s just naturally where you meet people on dates and have to interact. Everyone has these strange fronts up because they’re trying to lead with the best parts of themselves. But also alcohol is being consumed, so you have this other side to people coming forth which is in a way their worst instincts sometimes and what happens when they’re no longer behaving in what may be socially responsible ways. It lends itself to feeling unsafe often, which is why I felt like it was such an important setting for “The Rebirth.”
When I worked, I had a respectful manager. But I have a lot of friends in the industry – you know actors, artists, we’re all working at bars and restaurants – and I’ve heard so many horror stories. I think unfortunately, waitresses, bartenders, etc. tend to be disrespected and not taken seriously. I feel like the drama and story I wanted to tell really lent itself to that space.
Absolutely. Your previous works, like “Project Girl,” “Natural Disasters,” and “Coming,” which you wrote, are about reckoning with shame and desire. It feels like these pieces have led up to “The Rebirth.” I find nuggets of them all here in this project, and I’m wondering if you have anything else you feel you’ve carried from those films to this one?
I think so. When I made “Project Girl,” that was my first foray into directing really. I had made short films with friends growing up, but “Project Girl,” was my first time thinking intentionally about the kind of work I wanted to make. I was still very much feeling like I didn’t know if I belonged in that space as a director. I watch those films and I’m so proud of them and especially proud of the vulnerability we all led with when making those stories, as they were all inspired by true stories. But I can also see ways in which I was afraid to experiment or go too far, even in the length of those films (they’re all under five minutes).
As I’ve made each film since then, I feel like I can take up a little bit more space each time and I can experiment a little bit bigger. Obviously genre and using supernatural elements is a more obvious way of experimenting, but even with the visual language of THE REBIRTH I feel like I’ve been able to feel freer with how I explore as a filmmaker. That has felt really fun to do.
Another thing I loved about “The Rebirth” is that Hana’s moments of power show themselves from feelings of exasperation and self-defense. Deciding that enough is enough, and I feel like, as you’ve talked about, our cultural climate is really getting to that point. The end of this film feels like hope to me – the idea that revolution is always on the horizon, and I wonder if there’s any other messages you hope viewers get from “The Rebirth”?
I hope people after watching the film feel inspired to keep fighting. The world can feel really overwhelming and it’s easy to feel like there’s no point. That was part of the function of making this film, for me and the team, we wanted to end it feeling hopeful and also motivated to continue the fight. On a more personal level, for women and non-binary people, for anybody, to trust their own strength and listen to their bodies. To know that everything they need is inside of them.
It definitely comes through. And in moments of reckoning and revolution, we all have to turn to our comforts to cope. For Hana, it’s Bob’s Burgers. For me, Broad City is huge, and I’m wondering what it is for you?
I love Broad City. Hacks has been my comfort comedy show lately. PEN15 gets really dark but it’s also so funny. Something about that show just makes me feel close to myself, so I love that one as well. I have so many – It’s Always Sunny is a big one too. I have my comedies that I turn to when things feel dark, which can be a lot these days.
