Private Project

Female Captive

A dive inside the mind of a female captive as all the different parts of her fight over what is true and what to do.

  • Brit Crawshaw
    Director
  • Josh Hayward
    Director
  • Brit Crawshaw
    Writer
  • Lauren Lukow
    Producer
    Te llaman las olas (The Waves Call You), Mara Has Three Jobs in San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Katrina Kudlick
    Producer
    Fixation, Spoonful of Sugar, Appendage
  • Pauline Chalamet
    Key Cast
    "Gem and all of Gem's parts"
    HBO's The Sex Lives of College Girls, The King of Staten Island
  • Emilio Garcia-Sanchez
    Key Cast
    "Liquor Store Guy"
    The Society, Love in the Time of Corona
  • Wayne Stephens
    Key Cast
    "Sky"
  • PJ Marino
    Key Cast
    "Chest Hair Guy"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Dark Comedy, Fantasy, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 12 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 8, 2023
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Seattle International Film Festival
    Seattle, WA
    United States
    May 18, 2024
    World Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Salute Your Shorts Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    August 18, 2024
    Official Selection
  • Hollyshorts Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    August 14, 2024
    California Premiere
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Brit Crawshaw, Josh Hayward

The mind meld of Brit and Josh began in Brooklyn, the year of 2016, when we first met and realized we liked each other’s work as well as each other as people. We’ve been collaborating ever since.

Some other basics about us career-wise:

Brit is a graduate of USC’s Writing for Screen and Television program who’s been working as an agency creative director, making “branded narrative content” (a.k.a. commercials) that earned a Digiday Award and a Webby nom.

Josh is an award-winning commercial director with a graphic design background and a documentary short film that won him a gold Young Director Award at Cannes Lions.

Female Captive is our first narrative project together.

And a fun fact: we just got married at the end of September 2023.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

FROM BRIT, WRITER + CO-DIRECTOR:

The initial inspiration for the short came from seeing how my brain behaved during a high-stakes, terrifying situation. My instincts were screaming one thing based on overwhelming evidence, but my “logical” intellect constructed a narrative that fit what I wanted to believe, saying not to listen to my Lizard Brain and cherrypicking facts to discredit it. The experience revealed to me how hard it is to know when I’m lying to myself. Or rather, how hard it is to know which part of me is lying.

I wrote the film to explore all the opposing “parts” of me and the feeling of being trapped by them – unable to escape my mind and its limited perspective to see the truth.

I chose to make the story about a literal female captive since the subject forces me to confront all the uncomfortable internal contradictions I feel as a woman – desires and fears and values have been shaped by fairytales, action films, romance novels, true crime stories, and the feminist critiques of them all. Do I have to fight to be a good feminist? Is it shameful to hope for rescue instead? Am I allowed to be submissive as a strategy? God forbid Stockholm Syndrome come into play.

Moreover, I wanted to give a redress for the female captives in stories who have been judged as one-dimensional because their interior world goes unrepresented.