A woman in the big city. She is beautiful, tall, and strutting. Sporting a tasteful business attire; not too bleak - not too loud, and with a healthy-sized briefcase. Her vision is narrowed through her dark sunglasses and her heels clack against the pavement - she’s got somewhere to be! We don’t know where or for what, but she means business.
We are looking to fund A Business Call, written by Raine Roberts, directed by Cara Griffin, & starring Cecilie Mengel. The city of Chicago is the perfect choice to tell the story of our Business Woman as the culture of the city is perfectly aligned with our vision, as well as being Raine's hometown. We are looking to raise funds to travel our 6-person crew & shoot on 16mm.
Raine is a photographer, filmmaker, sculptor and educator from Chicago, IL. Her work studies themes of repetition, structure, the natural environment, and the body. Raine uses techniques that are rhythmic and involve enacting the same movements over and over again. A shape takes form after repeated actions. Her work heavily involves exploring through-lines of internal and external experiences.
She holds a BFA in Film Productions and BA in Communications from the University of Colorado in Boulder (2019). After working in documentary filmmaking, she went on to study at the International Center of Photography (2023) receiving the Director Fellowship. Raine has exhibited her work in two solo exhibitions with Westlab +Gallery; with group shows at LUMA Arles, the Berry Campbell Gallery, WORTHLESS STUDIOS, Brooklyn Film Camera, and Haus Am See in Switzerland. She received the Jury Mention Prize for the 8th Dior Photography and Visual Artists Award for Young Talent. She held residencies with Woodward Residency and was the Photographer in Residence for the FREE FILM PROJECT. In 2024, Raine was commissioned by Mono No Aware and Westlab +Gallery to make a film on 16mm for the XVIII Biennial Festival of Cinema Arts. Raine is a member of the international photography group SmallTable Collective. She is based in Brooklyn, NY.
Cara Griffin is a director, assistant director, and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. She enjoys making films that tackle the nuances of ‘girlhood’ by creating highly stylized, dream-like environments that give weight to her characters' fantasies, while also showcasing the ways in which young girls search for identity and ownership over their bodies.
Cara holds a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study & has screened her directorial work at the New Faces New Voices Festival, the New York No Limits Film Series, the Yosemite Fantasy Film Festival, the Orlando Film Festival, St. Bimbo’s Film Church, the Neighborhood Film Festival, and the NYU Gallatin Student Film Festival. She is a recipient of the 2023 NYC Women’s Fund finishing grant in partnership with NYFA and MOME for her short film My Savior. Cara has produced & directed numerous projects for the Neighborhood Film Festival, a showcase of collaborative projects from Brooklyn-based film and theater artists. Cara is a former Resident at the Woodward Residency in Ridgewood, Queens. She is currently developing a feature-length script.
Additional crew includes Michael Fiebig (Producer), Erin Neitzel (Production Designer), & Ana Aizer (Assistant Camera).
