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Harley is an expectant mom, clueless about modern motherhood. During trendy Mommy & Me classes, she retreats into visions of dance and fantasy to escape the absurdity. But once baby comes, fear and fantasy collide as postpartum anxiety twists real life into nightmarish moments.
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Faith StrongheartDirector
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Heather TylerWriter
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Heather TylerProducer
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Heather L. TylerKey Cast"Harley"
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D'LoKey Cast"Jay"
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Kristi ClainosKey Cast"Sandy"
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Jennie FahnKey Cast"Risa"
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Jane Hae KimKey Cast"Akiko"
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Miguel CohenKey Cast"Matao"
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K.J. MiddlebrooksKey Cast"Warren"
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Rex Tyler SamselKey Cast"Rex"
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Royale Ke’Vonni TurnerKey Cast"Freya"
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Cat DeakinsCinematographer
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Zeborah TidwellEditor
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Project Type:Short
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Genres:comedy, dramedy
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Runtime:16 minutes 3 seconds
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Completion Date:May 24, 2020
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Production Budget:22,000 USD
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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:No
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Student Project:No
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Award Winner - Four Corners Film FestivalFarmington, NM
United States
September 17, 2020
North American Premiere
Winner: Women in Film -
McMinnville Short Film FestivalMcMinnville, OR
United States
February 22, 2021
Official Selection -
Nominee - We Make Movies International Film FestivalLos Angeles
United States
Nominee - Best Screenplay
Director Faith Strongheart: Faith is a writer/director with a unique visionary style. She has just completed her MFA in directing at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television and is in post on her thesis film, Getting From Here, an extraction from a feature based on her exceptional hippie childhood. She has also just completed another short film, Havana, about homosexual lovers in Cuba in 1978. Her last short film, Je Suis (i am), a powerful story about a woman scrambling to balance work and family, had a great run on the international festival circuit, garnering much attention and awards.
Faith has written, produced and directed several short films and has participated in numerous directing workshops. In addition, she has written three feature-length screenplays and a dramatic television series pilot. Prior to entering graduate school, Faith worked for over fifteen years as a film professional on several features, allowing her invaluable access to the imaginative integrity of some of the most visionary filmmakers today.
Faith was a finalist for the Sloan Foundation Fellowship and is a two-time recipient of the Motion Picture Association of America award, a recipient of the Women in Film Verna Fields Memorial Fellowship, the Bill Lee Memorial award, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association award for Directing, the Carroll Sax Award in Motion Picture and Television Production and the Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation Scholarship. This year, she is the recipient for the Mary Pickford Award for Documentary Filmmaking for a feature documentary that she is making about her non-traditional hippie upbringing.
Writer/Producer Heather L. Tyler: After studying theatre at Rhodes, Heather began her professional career in Chicago, where onstage credits include The Threepenny Opera w/the hypocrites @ Steppenwolf and critically acclaimed Dirty Diamonds at The Factory Theater. Her play, Ceres, was also produced by The Factory. In L.A., she developed the title character in Meditations: Eva Hesse, a world premiere at Highways Performance Space, and she has performed with Rogue Machine in A Bright New Boise and Wish I had a Sylvia Plath (u.s.) & with Sacred Fools in A Gulag Mouse. Film/TV credits include Johnny Frank Garrett’s Last Word premiering at SXSW and The Bridge (FX). She has also appeared in many commercials. For the Hollywood Fringe, she produced and directed the L.A. premiere of Porno Dido. The following year, while seven months pregnant, she produced four Fringe shows for Rogue Machine, including the multiple award-winning In the Valley of the Shadow, a beautiful story about the Pulse Orlando nightclub shooting.
HEATHER L TYLER: This is a personal story for me. I was wholly unprepared to become a parent and greatly resisted all the trendy how-to’s everyone around me was exploring. I’m a small town girl living in LaLaLand - the phrase ‘birth plan’ was lost on me. When I was going through my rough patch, no one was talking about postpartum anxiety - I’d only heard of depression and knew my symptoms didn’t match that. I was unaware that 1 in 5 mothers will experience a postpartum mood disorder, and I was too afraid to ask for help. I started writing this story to process, to heal, to laugh with myself.
After working in the industry for many years as an actor, and having written and produced several projects, I have learned the value of a trusted Director. I previously worked with Faith Strongheart on her film about motherhood, Je Suis. It was met with much success, and I came to both trust her and admire her work. She enthusiastically agreed to come on board. Together with Cinematographer Cat Deakins and Editor Zeborah Tidwell (two more moms,) our creative team was formed.
The film has three distinct worlds: Present day, where the anxiety lives - heightened, stark colors, with moments in slow-motion; Flashbacks to the Mommy & Me scenes, where the humor is evident - naturalistic with primary colors, lit like a sitcom; Dream/fantasy dance sequences underwater and Latin ballroom/carnivale - gorgeous movement, images and lighting.
For years, I’ve scrutinized characters’ quirks, physicalities, compulsions, psychology, motivations and speech patterns…characters written for women like me, by men not at all like me. It’s incredibly empowering to try new characters on when they ebb and flow - or sometimes burst - out of your own head. I do my best to think of who I don’t see represented in the media around me, but who is in my world...and then I name them in my story. I’ll never write a Sri Lankan woman’s perspective of transitioning gender, coming out as gay and announcing she’s pregnant as a man...but I’ll include them in the story I tell beacuse they exist, and they’re awesome. Female perspectives are important. Mothers’ stories are important. Inclusion is undeniable. Levity and humor and imagination are necessary. Movement. Things that visually move you. These are the things that drive my storytelling.