Friend Divorce

In a world where friends get married more often to receive the legal and societal benefits of romantic spouses, high school best friends Rose and Taylor eagerly tie the knot. But as new relationships and changing career ambitions throughout their twenties contribute to new priorities, one feels compelled to file for divorce, rocking what they always thought would be their deepest connection.

  • Jennifer Zahlit
    Director
  • Jennifer Zahlit
    Writer
  • Kat Belinfante
    Writer
  • Jennifer Zahlit
    Producer
  • Kat Belinfante
    Producer
  • Megan Fitzgerald
    Producer
  • Jake Topkis
    Producer
  • Larkin Bell
    Producer
  • Kat Belinfante
    Key Cast
    "Taylor"
  • Chantel Adedeji
    Key Cast
    "Rose"
  • Janna Cardia
    Key Cast
    "Diana"
  • Jacquis Neal
    Key Cast
    "Andrew"
  • Yamini Nambimadom
    Key Cast
    "Harper"
  • Courtney Parchman
    Key Cast
    "Raya"
  • Kari Lee Cartwright
    Key Cast
    "Laura"
  • Rob Adler
    Key Cast
    "Judge Daniel"
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Friendship, Dramedy
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 22 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 4, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    100,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Jennifer Zahlit

Growing up, Jennifer Zahlit was an orchestra (played the viola, a wildly popular instrument) and theatre nerd, where she fell in love with the magic of collaboration and the power of an ensemble. After graduating from USC’s School of Dramatic Arts, becoming involved in the LA theatre scene, and training with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, she set off for NYC to act, where she soon realized she was a director. She directed a short film back in LA and became obsessed. After moving back to LA, Jennifer cobbled together a film education through making shorts with friends, co-creating A Brighter Lens podcast, and learning as much as she could from every movie she saw. She just completed her first feature FRIEND DIVORCE that she directed and co-wrote.

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Director Statement

Relationship scientists say that the average person will replace more than half of their friends every seven years. In our lifetime, we may go through as many (or more!) friend break-ups as romantic ones. After my creative partner Kat and I had experienced several heartbreaking friend break-ups of our own, we realized there aren’t really any cultural scripts to know how to handle one. Most of these friend fallouts did not stem from a particular incident but rather an intangible and often confusing shift in the dynamic, something that is very difficult to articulate and have a conversation about. We don’t get to grieve a friend break-up in the same way we get the time, space, and support for a romantic one, and so our film FRIEND DIVORCE aims to share and articulate this experience that we (and so many others) have gone through.

While we have seen (and love) so many romantic comedies on screen, we have missed seeing the bittersweet coming together and potential falling apart of friendships in the same way. And while Taylor and Rose may not get their big happy ending together, we get to see their fully fleshed out history and dynamic, one that we rarely see, especially when there is a traditional love story involved. Friendships are not governed by biology or passion, but are an essential, and often unsung, part of our lives that often don’t get the cinematic treatment. We made a platonic love story.

Kat and I are an incredibly scrappy pair of indie filmmakers (and best friends too!), and have seen this project from the seed of an idea in April 2020, to a zoom reading of it as a short film, to a year of wondering how the hell we could ever make a feature film on our own, to the decision that we were somehow going to find a way to make a feature film on our own, and then so many community members showing up to contribute and support us and this story. Our film embodies the indie spirit. Creating with the resources we had around us, we had no industry help or connections and have learned so much about the craft and collaboration involved in filmmaking in completing this film.

This film is tonally similar to Booksmart, Frances Ha, and Pen15: a female-driven indie dramedy. This is not just a celebration of two women’s friendship, but also a more nuanced examination of the delicate business of maintaining childhood friends when life might take us in different directions. While many women tend to have these intense and intimate relationships with friends, friendship is a universal experience that we think will speak to all audiences. People are hungry for stories that examine friendship. We are passionate about this story because we have lived it -- and because we value friendship and its central priority in our lives.