I didn’t get to see many Tribeca Fest films in the theatre this year due to my travel schedule at the beginning of the festival, but I was so glad to be able to catch the film and post screening discussion of Future Weather.

Future Weather tells the story of a smart, science obsessed teenager Lauduree — played beautifully by Perla Haney-Jardine — who gets abandoned by her dreamer mom. This girl is one step from potential disaster. The mother and daughter already lived on the brink of poverty, but mom Tanya (Marin Ireland) did believe in her daughter’s scientific gifts and encouraged her. That’s one good thing about dreamers — they won’t shoot down your dreams. They just have no reality check and a teenage girl needs a mom with one foot based in the real world. Tanya was not that kind of mom.

What is so special about this character is that this is a young girl who is in love with science. She is conducting experiments and believes in her own 13 year old way that she can solve global warming. One of the reasons doesn’t tell anyone, including her grandmother, that her mother left is because she does not want to abandon her experiments and months of data.

But she is just a kid and can’t live on her own and she reluctantly moves into her mother’s old bedroom in grandma Greta’s (Amy Madigan) house. Greta does not want Lauduree to make the same mistakes as her mother, but she is not the best communicator. And she’s also pissed that she is now saddled with taking care of her granddaughter just as she was making plans to leave the midwest and move in with her boyfriend in Florida.

I loved this movie because of the atypical strong female roles. I don’t know the last time I saw a girl who was a scientist in a film who gets mentored by a female science teacher played by Lili Taylor. I really hope this film gets bought and released and is shown to kids across the country.

I was able to sit down with first time writer/director Jenny Deller and her producer Kristin Fairweather after the premiere of their film for a short conversation.

FYI — They are still raising money to pay for the release at Tribeca and for future screenings. The campaign ends May 9 at noon. Info here.