So, Boom
Sweet Tea has to give her younger sister a "how to jail" tutorial before morning comes.
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Abby PierceDirector"Eat Your Heart Out", "Go Ahead, Grab Time by the Throat"
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Tiny CruzWriter
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Abby PierceWriter
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Hannah WeleverProducerBrown Girls (Emmy nomination), The Bear, Y2K, Soiree
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Tiny CruzKey Cast"Sweet Tea"
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Marisa RazoKey Cast"Marie"
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Eliza RamosKey Cast"Issa"
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Jason ChiuDirector of PhotographyLet's Start a Cult, The Year Between, Joe Pera Talks With You
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Project Type:Short
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Runtime:13 minutes 57 seconds
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Completion Date:March 15, 2025
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Production Budget:34,000 USD
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Country of Origin:United States, United States
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Country of Filming:United States, 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:No
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Student Project:No
Abby Pierce (Director, Co-Writer) is a filmmaker and performer from New York City whose work explores personal stories at the intersection of art and criminal justice reform. For the past eight years, she has taught improvisation and storytelling in New York and Chicago jails, using theater to empower and rehabilitate incarcerated individuals. Abby has directed multiple productions with incarcerated performers, including "Area 51: The Block" at Rikers Island and the U.S. premiere of "Hopelessly Devoted", a women’s prison drama performed at Chicago’s Piven Theatre and Cook County Jail.
Her debut short film, "Eat Your Heart Out", premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival and won multiple awards, including "Best Comedy" at the New York International Short Film Festival. Her second short film, "Go Ahead, Grab Time by the Throat", was praised by RogerEbert.com as "one of my favorite short films that I've seen in the past few years."
As an actress, Abby is a graduate of The School at Steppenwolf and has appeared on stage and television, with recent credits in "The Bear" and "Chicago Fire".
In New York City, it costs almost a million dollars a year to incarcerate one juvenile. (holy. shit.) There’s no clear mission being served to these kids with that kind of money. If we want rehabilitation, we need to do better. We need to talk about this. "So, Boom" is our way of starting that conversation.
The first draft of "So, Boom" was written in jail, on the back of an attendance sheet, while Tiny and I waited for improv class to begin. She was telling me about a phone call she’d had the night before with a friend who was turning herself in to the police the next morning. Tiny and I have been teaching improv theater together for the past five years to incarcerated youth at Rikers Island and other NYC jails. Our job is to carve out and offer them a safe space to play. Play has the power to be as disruptive as violence. Play changes the tone of a room. Play is a radical response. It is so much fun. It's good for you.
The truth of lived experience drives "So, Boom". Tiny drew inspiration from the years when she was incarcerated. Many of Sweet Tea’s “rules” in the film come from our students, who are currently incarcerated teenagers. Through improv exercises, they explored how they would help someone on their first day in jail. For example, the rule “Be Yourself” came from a theater class of young men at Rikers Island. They spoke about the importance of being authentic when you’re living in close quarters and sharing all your time with the same people every day.
This film is also an opportunity to show these young people the art they inspired. We plan to screen "So, Boom" for youth in our program to give them the chance to see their stories reflected on screen. Making this film was also a special opportunity for many of the cast and crew to tell a story that directly impacts their lives.