Moondance
In the beginning of Moondance we meet Carole and Diane in the throes of a passionate reunion. After the initial intensity subsides, fiery Carole demands to know the true reason why her former lover has returned to their lake house three years after she left. Diane's superficial charm does not penetrate Carole's hard exterior. It is not until Diane invokes their painful past that they are forced to decide whether they are willing to heal and forgive each other. Beautifully set along Peach Lake in Brewster, NY, Moondance is a surprising and unconventional love story that leaves audiences feeling inspired and touched.
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Simha ToledanoDirector
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Simha ToledanoWriter
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Simha ToledanoProducer
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Patricia Cardona RocaProducer
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Patricia Cardona RocaKey Cast"Carole"
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Jessica NapierKey Cast"Diane "
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Project Type:Short
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Runtime:11 minutes 7 seconds
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Completion Date:January 1, 2020
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:Yes
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Student Project:No
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Boden International Film festivalBoden
Sweden
Official Selection, Finalist -
Reel Pride LGBT FestivalFresno
United States
September 17, 2021
North American Premier
Official selection "Female Short Films" -
Heart of Europe International Monthly Film Festival
Slovakia
Official Selection, Finalist, Honorable Mention -
V.i.Z Film Festival
October 2, 2021
Official selection. Winner Best Poster; finalist for Best Short, Best LGBTQ Short, Best Director, Best first time director -
Pridefilm.online FestivalVirtual
Official Selection -
Indo Singapore International Film FestivalTamil Nadu
India
Official Selection, Winner Best LGBT Short -
Calgary Independent Film FestivalAlberta
Canada
Official selection, Winner Best LGBTQ Short -
Hollywood on the Tiber Film AwardsRome
Italy
Official selection, Winner Best Original Screenplay -
Cannes Short Film FestivalCannes
France
Official Selection
Simha Toledano (she/they/?) is a proud Queer, Jewish, and first generation American storyteller. Their inherently dynamic creativity streams into a number of expressive modalities such as writing, acting, theater and film direction, producing, teaching, and ritual leadership. Moondance is her debut as a filmmaker, scriptwriter, and producer. Simha believes that their role as a storyteller is that of a midwife- to support the birth of a just, safe, and joyful world through the stories we tell and share. Simha is currently training to be a Hebrew Priestess through the Kohenet Institute.
I love sharing the story of how I made my first movie, Moondance. In 2015, when I was living in Brooklyn, me and two friends, Patricia and Kendra, decided to form a Virgo writing group. The three of us are September Virgo theater artists, so we implicitly trusted each other to take this idea seriously and hold each other to our special brand of Virgo accountability- the silent and palpable frustration of perfectionism. Every two weeks one of us would send a prompt and a deadline that we would needlessly stress ourselves to uphold. That October Kendra sent the prompt "Where does the sky end?" When I sat down with this prompt I immediately imagined one of my favorite places, Peach Lake on Ryder Farm in Brewster, NY. As I connected with the lake and the land that I loved, my body relaxed and the story of Carole and Diane emerged from within and Moondance was born. It was a story that was deep in my bones, a story about loss and reconciliation. I have a desire for stories that show what difficult conversations look like, that show how messy relationships actually are, and what restoring trust between two people (or even two peoples) can look like- how humans can and do change.
That following summer, in 2016, Patricia put out a call for scripts to produce and I sent her Moondance to be considered. She was excited because she was hoping I would submit it. From that moment on we became producing partners, I took on the role of director, and she would be my leading lady. After experiencing a devastating set-back that summer, when our crew backed out a week before our shoot date, Patricia and I re-assessed our values and took a year to build a team of incredible and trust-worthy artists and creators to work with.
The most magical part of this story, however, is that the amazing people at SPACE on Ryder Farm allowed us to use Peach Lake as the location of our shoot. This was the exact place I pictured the whole scene between Carole and Diane taking place, and now we had the opportunity to bring it to life precisely where I imagined it. We were granted 12 hours on site and we shot the whole movie in one day in September 2017. The entire cast and crew travelled from New York City with all of the equipment, except for Patricia who flew in from The Hague, where she had moved since the project began.
This whole process has been full of heartache and miracles and I can only say I am hooked on filmmaking. The feeling of accomplishment, of successfully filming and editing a movie, a intrinsically collaborative art-form, is deeply fulfilling, spiritual, and humbling.