By Kara Headley and Vicki A. Lee
This week’s crowdfunding picks are a patchwork quilt of womanhood and girlhood, a vibrant assemblage of characters who are either coming of age or undergoing another critical period of their life journey. We find the protagonists at watershed moments in their lives: some are suspended in crisis without any apparent means of egress, while others are at the precipice of a new chapter, indulging in retrospection or anticipating fresh opportunity. Each of the projects turn the process of self-growth into a public, almost communal, spectacle that we can bear witness to, perhaps even illuminating aspects of our own metamorphoses that we, ourselves, cannot discern through hindsight.
“Nothing Left to Give” is the capstone project of film student Simone Thomas, which tells the uncensored story of a young woman battling addiction who is forced to confront her inner demons. With similar candor, Viv Li documents her own upbringing in “The Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest,” a playfully brazen bildungsroman of her formative years — as a boy — during the one-child policy in China. Malorie Cunningham and Lilian Tanner also tackle growing pains with a sense of humor in “The Superlatives,” their feature film about high school seniors canvassing for yearbook superlative votes before they embark on the next stage of life.
Cat Tassini’s documentary “Echo’s Answer” seeks to preserve the legacy of the late Trish Keenan, pioneering musician and frontwoman of U.K. dreampop band Broadcast. Finally, April Maxey’s film short, “Work,” documents the post-breakup odyssey of a Chicana lesbian, and aims to dispel preconceived ideas of sex work.
Here are Women and Hollywood’s latest women-created and women-centric crowdfunding picks.
“Nothing Left to Give” (Short) – Directed by Simone Thomas
Armed with the support of a loving mother and a caring therapist, a young woman battles a drug addiction. However, only she can face and defeat her demons. Will she find the power to make it out alive?
Drawing inspiration from her own experiences, director Simone Thomas plans to bring the struggle of addiction and the importance of a strong support group to the screen. She is unafraid to dive into the gritty realism of a life shadowed with addiction.
“The one thing I can recall thinking is, I want this to be raw as hell,” Thomas says in the above video. “I don’t want to hold anything back. I want my first project coming out of college to stun people into silence, to make people so uncomfortable they don’t know what to say afterward.” When the credits roll, she wants to leave her audience with the realization that not everyone is lucky enough to survive the battle with demons within.
“‘Nothing Left to Give’ is our way of telling the fallen stories that go unheard,” the Kickstarter campaign states. “Not everybody wins their battles, and that is a harsh reality people tend to overlook.”
Learn more about “Nothing Left to Give” and donate on Kickstarter.
“The Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest” (Documentary) – Directed by Viv Li
Our relationships with our own bodies are influenced by not only the voice inside us but also the ever-present cultural influences and judgments that dictate our choices. Filmmaker Viv Li, raised as a boy in China during the one-child policy era and forced to bind her breasts from a young age, tackles this relationship head-on in her documentary, “The Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest.”
Li proposes to take a humorous approach and a somewhat wacky style, animating breasts and giving them the role of the narrator in the film. Through the story of her ever-evolving relationship with her breasts and the lingering memories of the one-child policy, Li will reflect on the cultural relationship of women and their bodies over the past 30 years in her homeland.
“It will follow a chapter-based and chronological order of my personal life from [when] I was born till today,” writes Li on Kickstarter, “meanwhile reflecting the influence of one-child policy, gender inequality, sex education, globalization, life in the diaspora, and the seemly absurd sex culture in China historically and today. Something the society has chosen to be silent about.”
Learn more about “The Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest” and donate on Kickstarter.
“The Superlatives” – Directed by Malorie Cunningham; Written by Lilian Tanner
How important is the mark you leave on your high school? The graduating class of Scadsbury High would tell you it is of superlative importance. In fact, the seniors in writer Lilian Tanner’s feature film campaign fight for their senior superlatives with the same fervor, if not more, as presidential candidates. Tanner — who will also act in the film — says she hopes to capture the absurdity of politics in the microcosm of one high school, exposing the comical similarities between the two disparate contexts. As she says on Indiegogo, “politics has been absolutely bananas, and I believe that one of the best ways to deal with chaos is through laughter.”
In “The Superlatives,” chaos is unleashed when the voting date is moved up and students are forced to mercilessly compete against each other for their desired superlative: not just a rite of passage but a legacy. Much like elected officials, the Scadsbury seniors spare no effort in the race, deploying even the most heinous political tactics — rigging polls, fabricating conspiracies, mudslinging — to “Best” their competition.
Tanner’s high school comedy has been a Second Rounder at Austin Film Festival and made the Short List at Barnstorm Fest. According to the Indiegogo page, “‘The Superlatives’ is ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ meets ‘Election:’ less sex, more yelling, and way better insults.” With a rapidly approaching deadline to immortalize one’s existence in high school, “Every student must fight to make sure they can create a lasting legacy for themselves.”
Learn more about “The Superlatives” and donate on Indiegogo.
“Echo’s Answer” (Documentary) – Written and Directed by Cat Tassini
Who inherits your memory after you’re gone?
“The wind has gone / The invisible come / Your memories are being run:” thus opens “Echo’s Answer,” the fifth track on dreampop and electronic band Broadcast’s 2002 album, “The Noise Made by People.” Like its namesake, Cat Tassini’s project orbits around an endangered memory: the life narrative of a genre-defying, genre-defining artist that is at risk of evaporating into oblivion.
Directed, written, produced by Tassini, “Echo’s Answer” is a documentary about Trish Keenan, the late frontwoman of Broadcast, who passed away a decade ago at the age of 42. She was singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer of the groundbreaking yet underappreciated U.K.-based band. As the project’s Seed&Spark page puts it, “Mysterious and enchanting, Keenan’s onstage persona belied a friendly and down-to-earth offstage presence.” With this documentary, Tassini hopes to commemorate Keenan’s life. “Echo’s Answer” will be an elegy for the trailblazing musician.
“Without this document, they could fall into obscurity,” Tassini says about Keenan and her band. Tassini’s film will memorialize the artistry of Keenan in a way that honors her singular vision, her unique voice, and the indelible mark she made on the music landscape. Tassini will endeavor to visually reflect Broadcast’s recording style by “blending outmoded and contemporary technologies” with a “collage style of editing.”
According to the mission statement, “Echo’s Answer” goes beyond the purview of one cult band and its beloved founding member: “It is our hope that by telling Trish’s story, we will create a greater appreciation for her and Broadcast, as well as inspire female-identifying musicians, engineers, songwriters, and other music-industry workers, aspiring or established.”
Learn more about “Echo’s Answer” and donate on Seed&Spark.
“Work” (Short) – Written and Directed by April Maxey
Breakups suck. Breakups rupture the sense of stability and normalcy we didn’t even realize we had until we lose it. But just as they are agents of destruction, breakups can also be catalysts of new beginnings. This is the idea that writer-director April Maxey toys with in her proposed film short, “Work.”
Post-breakup is where we meet Gabriela, a queer Chicana who suddenly returns to a former job as an underground lap dancer. “There, she unexpectedly reconnects with an old friend,” the Seed&Spark page reads, “and begins a journey of finding her way back to herself.” From this convergence of major life changes, Gabriela emerges anew.
“For me, this film depicts a journey of self reclamation, queer female intimacy, and healing after a breakup,” Maxey says. The film explores the world of underground lap dance parties, which, according to Maxey, have never before been depicted on screen. She hopes to disrupt preconceived ideas and stereotypes of sex work through the nuanced storytelling of the industry, showcasing the complexity of sex workers from a female, Latinx perspective. According to the mission statement, representation both on and off screen is the fulcrum of the project: “Aside from the characters in front of the camera, we are committed to prioritizing, hiring, and collaborating with womxn, people of color, and queer folks behind the camera as well.”
“Work” will be made as part of the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, which selects only eight filmmakers each year.
Learn more about “Work” and donate on Seed&Spark.
To be considered for Women and Hollywood’s biweekly crowdfunding feature, please write to wandhcrowdfunding@gmail.com. All formats (features, shorts, web series, etc.) welcome. Projects must be by and/or about women.
