Fund an NYU Film w Love, Ceramic Dolls, and Nostalgia

I could not be more excited to work with the renowned professor Chitra Neogy for my film for NYU's Intermediate Experimental Workshop! Three films from the professor's class have previously been selected at Cannes.

My short film, "The Beach has Stopped Crashing onto the Waves" is a story about longing, grief, and nostalgia--and how persistence in and of itself is worthy of pride. It's a story about love even, and existence! And it's very ambitious. It will partly be told through ceramic miniatures of the actors.

This summer, I get to work with an incredibly talented crew of graduated, professional NYU filmmakers! I am THRILLED to bring them onto what I am treating as the first of TWO thesis-level projects I'll make at NYU!!

We're creating ceramic miniatures with professional production designer Katie Heaton (Sabrina Carpenter, Jon Batiste, Pentatonix) and Parsons School of Design graduate Majo, the film-wide production designer and experienced graduate Noelle Henderson, shooting expansive natural locations on Sony Venice and FX6 cameras with international cinematographer/NYU alum Samuel Mitchell, working with such incredible SAG talent such as Afra Sophia Tully, incredible NYU Drama performers Hunter Sky Schofield and Sam Cusson, professional costume designer and NYU alum Tessa Norfleet, hair & makeup designer Kendyl Sorin, brilliant actor/producer Evan Mallick, hilarious and immensely talented 1st Assistant Camera Muhil Vaseekaran, experienced NYU sound mixer Rori Grimes, and some of my favorite people to be on set with: Sara Ettinger (2nd AC), Braeden Donnelly (Script Supervisor), Maverick Lopes (Assoc. Producer), Sean Rubin (Grip), and Dhruv Anish (1st AD).

Furthermore, a 40-foot dolly track, filming a miniature reversal of reality, and MORE--pretty much holding the sun in the sky for three straight days at sunset to make my film...

It all began with a script... I began writing this story last winter, with 120 pages. Over months, it transformed, plot changed, and characters "phlumped" into a 30-page pilot! Still, I persisted... bringing it home into a 10-page script. Simple, almost as a vessel, for my own healing, growth, and sensitivities, with the help of professor Chitra Neogy's guiding hand.

My filmmaking journey began with my first film, Castle Manly, which was about a trans princess on the quest to kill the wizard who slept with her grandmother (2016). The webseries I co-directed, authored by the brilliant KJ Kieras, was a coming-of-age story about LGBTQ students against a homophobic principal (Hetero, 2020-23, 400K views). And most recently, producing the NYU thesis film Blue Like Green, (coming 2024) an experimental film about religion, sexuality, and characters of the mind by the mastermind and dear friend Mack/Salome Flynn.

Please consider supporting "The Beach has Stopped Crashing onto the Waves.” If you love films that take risks, tell extraordinary stories and break with convention, this project does all of that and then some. Together with an exceptional team, I can’t wait to create, polish and bring this film to a screen near you.