My name is Estrella, and I was just accepted into the USC Summer Directing Program — one of the most competitive young filmmaker programs in the country.

I'm a junior at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. I've spent the last few years doing what I love most: telling stories that matter. I'm represented by Clear Talent Group, I'm currently playing Georgina and understudying Juliet at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum (where I'll earn my Equity card at the end of the season), and I just finished directing my first short film.

About the film

Waves of Silence is a short film I wrote as a freshman and just finished directing at sixteen. The current draft premieres at the LACHSA Sundown Festival on May 10th, and the final will be submitted to the Topanga Film Festival happening this September.

The film follows Elizabeth, a girl who finds her only sense of peace by the ocean — but even there, quietly struggles with feeling invisible. One party. One choice she can't take back. What starts as one night of letting loose slowly becomes weeks of parties, an abandoned friendship, and a new identity as "Beth" — the cool girl people actually want around. When the illusion shatters, Elizabeth runs to the only place that ever made her feel safe. She doesn't make it.

Left behind with Elizabeth's journal, her best friend Lily reads her words for the first time — and discovers that the girl who loved the ocean had been drowning long before the party ever started.

I wrote this as my therapy. My way of processing what it feels like to enter a new space, with new people and new expectations, while trying to figure out who you are in the middle of all of it. This film is a reminder to check in with the people around you. To be vulnerable. To share how you really feel — because you never truly know what someone else is carrying.

Everyone who contributes will be the first to know when Waves of Silence is released — and we'll be sharing updates from USC all summer so you can follow the journey as it happens.

Where this summer takes me

At USC, I'll be working directly with film faculty, developing my craft, and taking a real step toward the career I've been building since I was a little kid — acting, filmmaking, and lifting up voices that don't always get heard.

Here's the honest part: my mom and I are doing everything we can to make this happen. We're $8,000 short of full tuition.

My current MacBook is eight years old and simply cannot handle the software I need to do this work. Every dollar beyond tuition goes toward the tools that will carry me into the next chapter.

If you've ever believed in a young artist — if a film, a story, or a performance ever moved you — I'm asking you to believe in me right now.

Every dollar gets me closer to that spot at USC. And I promise I'll make something worth your investment.

With so much gratitude,

Estrella