All women are familiar with the complexities that come along with female friendships. On one hand, they can be magical, sparkly, and more valuable than any romantic relationship. But sometimes, they can be toxic, ugly, and a total mess. Sisterhood is a powerful, wonderful thing, but can sometimes almost feel…like a cult.

“Where the Hell is Anna?” follows the brokenhearted Derick, who sets out to find her missing best friend, Anna. Her journey leads her to Arcana, a supposed wellness retreat in the woods. Determined to rescue Anna from the group, Derick joins, only to discover sinister things below the surface of the picturesque band of women.

Witty, fun, creepy and dreamy, “Where the Hell is Anna?” pulls you in, much like a charismatic cult leader. With wonderful performances, and a charming sisterhood that many will find eerily relatable, this film is a cult-classic in the making.

Taylor Dupuis wrote, starred, and directed this small independent film locally in her town of Nashville. The film had it’s premier at the Nashville film festival this week.

Cinema Femme sat down with writer, director and star Taylor Dupuis to talk about the film.

What has your journey been like as a filmmaker? How did you start out in the industry?

I have been acting forever, since I was 8. I leaned into the music industry more, for like ten years. I was touring, writing and recording. I went to an acting studio in Nashville called The Fourth Wall, and that’s where I kind of met my film community. I’ve always loved writing as well, but it kind of started to come to fruition when people in the studio were making things, and wanting to make stuff. As an actor it’s really hard; you can be the best actor but if you’re not right for the role, you’re not right for the role. So I got really excited about making my own roles and my own opportunities, so that’s really where that stemmed from. It’s lead from there.

I absolutely love writing. I have a handful of projects in the development phase that we’re trying to get off the ground, but we’re really waiting for things to get green lit so we can move onto the next project. “Where the Hell is Anna?” has been a really great door for that as well.

How did the idea for “Where the Hell is Anna?” come to you? Where did you start with the process for this film?

I have a handful of projects I’m trying to get off the ground, a couple of them are bigger budget, but we wanted to create something that was more contained, still good, but more contained. I have this script called “Bitch Craft” with my co-creator, and in the beginning there is a cult setting but it kind of gets out of that, so I was like “It would be really cool to explore what that would look like and really get inside of it.” So I wrote this with containment and budget in mind, something we could film in Tennessee pretty easily. And thus was born “Where the Hell is Anna?”

So you wrote, directed and starred in this film. Props to you, that’s insane. What was the biggest challenge you faced juggling all of those roles on set?

I think hopping in and out of each role. I co-produced as well, and I think the hardest part was getting out of producer brain. The director to actor switch flowed pretty well, I felt very supported by my team. My AD is my fiancé, and my DP was fantastic, producers were wonderful. The whole team was so good I could kind of seamlessly hop in and out of directing and acting.

The hardest part was getting out of the producer mindset. My other producers had to be like “Go be a director right now, we got the producer stuff.”

What was the process like developing the cult? Was there any specific inspiration for that, or any interesting research you did?

I definitely did a lot of research. I tried to talk to people about it, watched movies. I wanted to get into the psyche of why people join cults, versus cults are bad. I mean we all know cults are bad. We all know to not join a cult. I wanted to dig more into why these women join cults. It doesn’t inherently make you a bad person. I had a lot of fun exploring that within a cult landscape.

This film is very centered around female friendships and sisterhood, both the beauty and the toxicity of it. How did that part of the story come to be?

I do think being a woman and having female friendships from a very young age, some of them not being healthy and some of them being healthy and just what I needed at the time, I think female friendships are so powerful. I have a lot of incredible women in my life right now, collaborators, so that felt very energizing and exciting to me to write about.

I think there’s a dark side of it too. It can lean into co-dependency and it can lean into a control thing. There can be love there, so much love, and there can be a little bit of toxic love there, but it can also be so beautiful and fulfilling. So it was really fun to tap into my own experiences with female friendship, good and bad.

This movie is also super funny as well as being scary. Was that something that was important to you, to cut the horror with humor, or was that something that came naturally?

It was intentional, I think genre blending is so difficult. We were doing a lot of checking in, seeing if it fit within the world, does this comedy fit in this environment. It was definitely intentional. I write a lot of genre blending stories. Like is messy and scary and funny, and I like to try and capture that all in a world.

There’s also different types of comedy, so finding the type of comedy that fit the genre blend was a concious choice. There were some jokes that got cut because they felt a little forced. So yeah, it was intentional and a lot of very detail thought went into that.

The soundscape of the film is super fun. I know you have some experience with music. I would love to know more about that and how that played into creating this film.

Yeah, I’m a musician. I’ve been a working musician for some years now, so it’s very, very important to me. From the writing of the script, I’m thinking about music. I’m creating playlists, I’m in a scene and I’m thinking about everything, the edit, the color – but also the sound and the music. I think it’s so informative of a moment and a mood. I also think it helps inform the other teammates, like “Hey, this is the sound and mood we are going for.” Our music supervisor was incredible, I couldn’t have done with without her. I really wanted to put an emphasis on the music and the sounds we were using, and then our composer, John Taylor, was also incredible. I told him I wanted banjo motifs, and for it to feel earthy, acoustic, very folky. He absolutely delivered. It was very fun to work with them, tell them my vision and have them bring their expertise to the table.

The movie is very visually beautiful. It’s very dreamlike. Was that a specific vision you had going in, or did that happen in the process?

That was definitely in collaboration with our DP, Tyler Oaks. We’ve been calling it “pretty horror” because it’s just so beautiful. We found a great location, I think the location really informed it. We really leaned into it, it was a beautiful location so we wanted to make it earthy and beautiful. I love the juxtaposition of something really pretty, even the actors, and combining that with the really creepy, scary, dramatic things going on. I think it fits with the theme, that’s what brings you in, the beauty, and the calm, and the dreamlike experience. When the scary hits, it’s like “Oh, this isn’t the world we thought it was.” So yeah, it was very intentional, and Tyler Oaks really brought that with his cinematography.

You filmed this entire thing in Nashville. What were some of the challenges, and also highlights, of that experience for you as a local Nashville filmmaker?

It was wonderful. We had an all Nashville cast and crew, except for one cast member that drove in. I loved being able to work with our community, we have such a great Nashville film community, so that was incredible.

The shoot was in August, so it was very, very hot. But we tried to use the elements. It was hot, it was sweaty, there were bugs everywhere, so we were like we might as well make this a hot, sweaty, buggy kind of film, because that was the reality of it. The heat was a bit of a challenege, but I do think it ultimately lended itself to the world.

Cinema Femme focuses on highlighting female and gender expansive creatives. What was your experience like working with a mostly female cast and crew?

It happened naturally, to be honest, which was really cool. The men we did have on set were incredible and are huge supporters of women in film, so we felt very held and seen. Especially because the story is very women-centric and is a story for women by women, so having that element on set was great. We had a very nurturing set, we all felt very loved and taken care of, and the vibes were great, there was no ego. I think having that women heavy crew with the themes of the story was really powerful.

What is one thing you’ve learned in your journey as a female creative that you’d like to share?

Don’t be afraid to be seen. I think it can be intimidating sometimes, being a woman in the industry, but people are drawn to authenticity and confidence and people who are truly themselves. So be authentic and don’t be afraid to be seen. That’s something I feel I really grew into through the process of making “Where the Hell is Anna?” It didn’t start out that way, it was very vulnerable, being like I’m writing, directing and starring. This is my idea out of my brain, which was terrifying, but if you let people see you, I think it’s a great way to build connection and make powerful art.