LANE 1974

LANE 1974 may seem like a strange choice for a first feature film. It’s a period piece featuring children, including a three year old, and starring a girl of 12 who appears in every scene. It’s a film which required bringing a handful of essential crew, the young actors and their families, on location in the wilds of Northern California, far away from any major city, and without a mighty budget to help ease some of the pain of shooting remotely. Another filmmaker may have reached for a safer choice as a first film. But I couldn’t.

LANE 1974 is based on Clane Hayward’s memoir, The Hypocrisy of Disco, but also parallels my own life. I grew up on the communes of Northern California in the 1970s. I remember the ever present sense of danger, the extreme outsiderness of our lives, and I vividly recall the great fear that if I stayed in that world too long, I would never be able to function in the straight world. Yet, as a child, I was stuck with the choices of my parents.

Although at the time I felt isolated and alone, I’ve come to realize “outsider” childhoods were not as uncommon as I had thought. The outpouring of support for this story has been overwhelming. Once we “outsider children” struck out on our own we tried our hardest to “pass” in the mainstream world, but we were carrying (what we thought was) a shameful secret. LANE 1974 is the outing of that secret, and the honoring of “outsider children”. Now, in adulthood, some choices my parents made seem bold, brave and even thoughtful. The difficulties of raising children, of trying one’s best and failing miserably, have come into greater relief. LANE 1974 addresses themes I can’t shake as a filmmaker: childhood, loneliness, and the struggle with the particularly American concept of independence. LANE 1974 shines a spotlight on an intense time in American history that has been swept under the carpet.

Inspired by filmmakers who have taken on films they felt they couldn’t avoid (Fitzcarraldo, Apocalypse Now), and armed with Sophia Mitri Schloss, a profoundly intelligent, talented young actress, and my fearless producing partner Jennessa West, we plunged in, head first. We went back to the land I grew up on, for the specific light, the golden grass, the redwoods, the rolling hills, the fog and the vast ocean of my memory, to illuminate a hidden girl’s life during arguably the most turbulent, troubled year in recent American history, 1974.

Although a period piece, this film is more relevant than ever as we as a culture begin to challenge the helicopter parenting that has become the norm, and as we challenge our societal embrace of coddled lifestyles, overly dependant on technology.

Making LANE 1974 took every memory I had, every feeling of anger, of abandonment, of terror, of emptiness, of loss, of connection, of longing, and of love. I am grateful to share it now.