SUPERSTAR Short Film Fund

UPDATE: We are excited to announce that Superstar is fully finished and will be premiering on Saturday August 19th 2023. Our next step will be to submit Superstar to festivals and get it in front of as many eyes as possible. Our ultimate goal is to turn Superstar into a feature length film and being able to submit this short to film festivals will help make this happen. We can still use your help. Any money we receive from here on out will go towards festival submission fees. Please continue to share and spread the word if you believe in this short film. You can view the trailer for Superstar here. Thank you!

Hello friend,

Thanks so much for taking an interest in our project! My name is Jacob and I am making a short film titled Superstar with my co-director, co-writer, and friend, Talha Hussaini.

STORY

After being involved in a tragic car accident, Frankie, a rising actress, prepares to give her first TV interview after her prolonged hiatus from the public eye all while trying to deal with her deteriorating, hallucinogenic psychosis. While writing Superstar, Talha and I were heavily inspired by the films Perfect Blue, Vox Lux and Irma Vep. You can view our poster below.

Our ultimate goal is to eventually make Superstar into a feature-length film using this short film as a proof of concept and as a way to help fund the feature film.

WHO WE ARE

Talha and I are currently in the midst of pre-production with planned shooting to happen this fall and to go into post-production in the spring of 2023. Superstar is being produced by Parco Richardson and Julie Oommen of Save The Airwaves, a local Phoenix-based film production company. Julie is also playing our lead character Frankie. She is joined by Reinaldo Jackson as Phil, Victor Richard as Emile, and Steff Espinoza as Trish.

Jacob Heimlich and Talha Hussaini - Directors and Writers

Parco Richardson - Producer

Julie Oommen - Producer and "Frankie"

Reinaldo Jackson - "Phil"

Victor Richard - "Emile"

Steff Espinoza - "Trish"

A little background: Superstar will be our third short film that we have made in the past few years. Our latest film, Plus 1, premiered in March of this year and has just been made publicly available online for the first time this week. A link to watch Plus 1 and more on this is below!

HOW YOU CAN HELP

While we have initial funds to get the basics together, we could really use your help to bring our vision for Superstar to life. $5, $10, $50, $100. Anything helps. Anything we raise here will help us book the best filming locations possible, acquire the best cameras and equipment, and further enhance the budget for each design department. This will also help us afford post-production needs like sound design, visual effects and creating an original score. Again, truly anything helps.

If you can't donate, we 100% understand. Times are hard and we recognize not everyone has the capacity to do this. However, if you would still like to help out in some way, you'd be doing us a huge favor just by sharing this page with your friends and family and spreading the word about our little project. Sharing is as important as financially backing the project and anything helps.

Check us out on Instagram @SuperstarShortFilm for updates and a few other fun donation-based surprises!

PAST FILMS

For the first time since the premiere, you can now check out Plus 1, Talha's latest short film here! Plus 1 has been selected to the Montreal Independent Film Festival and is a Finalist for the 2022 Around International Film Festival.

You can also watch Talha's first short film, Altar Valley, here.

Thank you so much for your interest in Superstar. We can't wait to share our creation with you in 2023.