Private Project

Visiting Birdie

Sixteen year old Sam explores her relationship with a new friend during an anxiety inducing day at Grandma's.

  • Hadley Dion
    Director
  • Deborah Maxwell Dion
    Director
    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; The Grand Budapest Hotel; White Noise
  • Hadley Dion
    Writer
  • Jenny Gulley
    Producer
    Happiest Season; Accidental Love
  • David Hyde Pierce
    Executive Producer
    Frasier
  • Brian Hargrove
    Executive Producer
    Caroline in the City
  • Karen Strassman
    Key Cast
    "Birdie"
  • Izzy Watts
    Key Cast
    "Sam"
  • Kate Alberts
    Key Cast
    "Lola"
  • Luca Longobardi
    Composer
  • Olivia Kimmel
    Director of Photography
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Queer, LGBTQIA+, Female
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 29 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 16, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    18,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.66:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Hadley Dion, Deborah Maxwell Dion

Deborah Dion and Hadley Dion are a mother/daughter duo.

Deborah has worked in casting for the past 27 years. Having worked on over 125 titles, she has had the honor of working with many notable directors such as Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, M. Night Shyamalan, Ramin Bahrani, James Gray, and Noah Baumbach among others. Passionate about directing actors in audition situations, she has always wanted to move into directing actors in film.

Hadley is a writer, producer, and filmmaker from Los Angeles. She earned her BFA in Film Production, with a concentration in sound design, at Chapman University. After graduating, she worked on The Mortified Podcast (produced in partnership with Radiotopia and PRX) for five years as an audio editor and producer. She also co-created, co-wrote, and co-directed the ten episode web series “I Would Have Kissed You,” now on Twisted Mirror TV.

Having collaborated in casting, producing, and teaching, Visiting Birdie is their first foray into co-directing with each other.

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Director Statement

This is a film about our intergenerational trauma and the ways women hurt from it, perpetuate it, and miraculously find ways to heal from it. As a mother/daughter team, we are interested in exploring our own matriarchal history and the ways women in our lives have carried on. Birdie represents the loneliness we are born from and the hurt we carry in our DNA. While her daughter has decided to break free from this cycle of pain, Birdie’s granddaughter, Sam, tries to maintain a relationship with her Grandma, though the toxicity is wearing her down. Lola offers an outsider perspective, she can easily get swept up into these established patterns or bring Sam into the light of a new way of thinking and healing.