Hi, I’m Layne, and I’m making my directorial debut: a short film called East County. Based on a day from my real life, it’s a love letter to the dusty margins of San Diego where I grew up—a deeply personal story about origins: home, memory, and belonging.

Here's the synopsis:

"When a family wedding brings them all back to town, Brynn and her siblings spend the night at their childhood home on the sun-bleached margins of San Diego. While they drink, bicker, and play in the dust, time folds and the back acre becomes a dream terrain. Around forgotten corners, a spectral child hides under a canoe, a donkey appears when summoned, a derelict sailboat becomes an altar for pomegranates--and Brynn confronts the landscape that shaped her. Part elegy, part exorcism, East County explores what lives in the narrow space between estrangement and belonging."

See about the look and feel of the film HERE.

My hope is that the film offers an invitation to others: to reintegrate the places and people that shaped you.

This is also a deeply San Diego project. The location is in my actual childhood home in east county San Diego with several of my family members joining the cast to help recreate this story. Our entire crew is local.

UPDATE: we completed shooting and production in October and are aiming to finish the film by Spring.

How to Support

We’re honored to have fiscal sponsorship, which means that every donation made through our sponsor is tax-deductible.

To make a tax-deductible gift, PLEASE USE THIS LINK

To make a quick contribution right here on GoFundMe, use the green “Donate Now” button above (this option is not tax-deductible).

Every contribution—big or small—helps bring East County to life. And if donating isn’t possible, sharing this campaign means just as much.

Thank you for being here on this journey with me. Thank you for believing in me, and for believing in East County.