“Mix Matched Socks” is a film about the turbulent, yet powerful relationship between a single mother and her only daughter.
Martha is saying goodbye to her daughter for what feels like forever. She is officially going to have an empty nest as Olivia is moving to the city for college. As a sendoff and to spend some much-needed quality time with her daughter, Martha packs their bags and books a stay at an apartment she found online (for a steal).
The two begin to clash when it comes to their romantic lives, Martha talks on the phone with her boyfriend and Olivia is flirting with Mark, the neighbor.
Martha begins to uncover some of Olivia’s secrets and must come to terms with the idea that her daughter is growing up in more ways than one.I am the first in my family to leave home for college. As a first-generation student and being the only child to a single mother, leaving was hard to put it simply. As I grew up, I came to the realization of just how scary and strange this big move was for my mom as well. She was going to be living alone for the first time in 18 years and her daughter was living in a completely different state. There are countless stories told from the perspective of a young adult flying the nest and the challenges they face as they learn to be on their on their for the first. I wanted to ask the question of how our parents deal with it. How do they change from this experience as they are equally transforming their lives along with ours? In this story, I wish to explore the complexities of a mother-and-daughter relationship through the lens of a mother. When you have a primary parent, they become more like a friend than a guardian at times. The film will tackle how those boundaries are pushed and how that affects the balance of the relationship.
Monster Slayer is a short documentary that tells the story of Stephanie “Monty” Montgomery’s journey in the aftermath of trauma, assault and stigma, through her gripping words and the animation of her visceral artwork and journal entries.
In June 2018, Monty, the subject of our film, was raped at a strip club in Los Angeles where she worked. She told the management and the police, and neither party did anything. With no justice on the horizon, Monty the Monster Slayer, Monty’s ass-kicking artistic persona, took matters into her own hands and harnessed her art as a weapon against her assailant and the stigma she faced. Monty rented a billboard overlooking the scene of her assault to showcase a mural that casts her as a hero, slaying the “Monster” who raped her, and calling out the system for failing her.
Through sharing her experience of assault along with the aftermath of injustice in both words and animation, we are able to innovatively expose abuses of power in a way that gives us access to what Monty saw, heard, and felt. There have been many animated documentaries before, but few animations were created by the main subject themselves.
In addition to all of this, the stakes addressed in Monster Slayer are high as the film questions preconceived notions about sex work, seeking to humanize and empower a community often ignored or vilified. Despite the recent #MeToo movement, the sex work community remains marginalized in discussions about sexual assault. Monty’s personal encounter with assault and the subsequent stigma she faced directly addresses the experiences of sex workers in the context of sexual assault, putting this crucial conversation at the forefront of the broader movement.
Eat Surf Love is a narrative short film that celebrates the beautiful awkwardness of human encounters. It’s a story about the resiliency we discover after we failed to catch the wave, didn’t get the job, or had zero return on a romantic investment. The film starts and ends with an audio podcast, and we view, in almost documentary fashion, two disparate people stumbling through a first conversation, and how, in revealing their vulnerabilities and aspirations, they change themselves and each other. Set in San Francisco, it’s also a love-hate letter to this paradoxical place, nudged between a bay and an ocean, where hearts have been left, lost, and also found.
WHAT WE NEED
Eat Surf Love is a low budget independent labor of love. We shot our film on our phones! The film is now in post production. We are seeking finishing and marketing funds, to achieve the project’s potential.
FILMMAKERS AND PRODUCTION TEAM
Filmmaker Nada Djordjevich is an award-winning writer and social impact consultant, originally from the Bay Area, with degrees from Harvard and Berkeley. Her first short, California Pie (2022), has screened throughout the US and received multiple awards including two for “best animated film.”
Producer and First Assistant Camera, Mayra Padilla is a creative entrepreneur and communications professional, with proven results in brand management, social marketing, and event planning. A multilingual writer and storyteller, the documentary “To Sandy, from Sri Lanka “ was her first film.
CAST
Laura Yumi Snell is a Japanese-American actress, pianist, singer, and co-founder of SoHo Shakespeare Company. Her works include Murakami Music (Symphony Space and US tour), Avenue Q (international tour), Richard III (SoHo Shakes), and the films “Carsick,” “Quarantine Horror Story”, and “Keiko’s Hands.”
Tyler Ritter was born in Los Angeles and after spending seven years abroad decided to move back to the (sometimes) sunny state. His most notable TV credits include The McCarthy’s, “Arrow,” “NCIS,” “Merry Happy Whatever,” “Homecoming,” and “Painkiller.”
Molly Wood is a longtime journalist and podcaster. She is the founder of Molly Wood Media, where she writes and podcasts about solutions to the climate crisis, advises companies on their climate messaging, and invests in climate tech companies. Eat Surf Love is her first film.
WHY SUPPORT US
- You want to see new films, actors, and ideas on screen.
- You want to be part of the wave of independent filmmaking.
- You want to stay informed about our journey and perhaps get onboard for the next one.
HOW YOUR SUPPORT HELPS
Funding will enable high quality audio, music, sound and color-correction, along with closed-captions and subtitles to increase accessibility to diverse audiences. Funds will support festival entries and marketing materials (a trailer, poster, social media and other graphics) to create and sustain engagement. Your support for the emerging talent associated with this film helps create a foundation for new voices and films. The majority of our cast and crew are from groups underrepresented in films, and, for 30% of our team, this was their very first film.
Eat Surf Love is a micro-budget production, with a SAG-AFTRA agreement generated in November 2022. “Micros” are not subject to the strike, and if this policy changes, we will make any necessary adjustments or agreements. We are an 100% independently financed, independently produced short film with no connection to the AMPTP. Supporting our film indicates your support for the growth of independent film production and studios.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For full listing of our cast and crew, see our website: eatsurfloveproductions.com
If you’d like merchandise, such as our Eat Surf Love fleece jacket, or mugs, send us an email.
To contact us directly – send an email to eatsurflovefilm@gmail.com
I Love You So Much is a silent film/TV POC reminiscent of “Wonderstruck” and “Coffee Shop.” The story revolves around a musician still adjusting to recently losing her hearing. At her new job at a deaf café (a real restaurant in Texas called Crepe Crazy), she rediscovers hope thanks to a repeat customer: Having left her singing career behind, she finds a unique way to make a positive impact in the stranger’s life, ultimately saving it.
This short is intended to be a breakout project representing my stand for the disabled entertainment community. And I don’t mean in a “feeling sorry” kind of way-the intention is to create awareness in a way that features people of disability doing such brave and impactful things, that the audience relates to them like they’re not disabled at all.
I was inspired to write this when I first met actress Michelle Mary Schaefer. I learned that most of the people around her when she was younger didn’t speak sign language or understand how she communicated. She often would sit in silence during family and social gatherings feeling alone and unexpressed. As she got older and got heavily involved in her community, some of that shifted, but what didn’t so much was trying to integrate into the working world. Can you imagine a day to day life where outside of typing on a computer, you cannot communicate with most of the general population? How isolated that must feel? Carly Wilkes, who is the film’s main character, lives this struggle to a huge degree having recently been able to hear and then her whole world going silent. And although she works at a cafe that only employs deaf people, still the outside world, now void of music that she loves and the sound of voices we all take for granted, is a lonely, silent void.
I have always had a special in my heart for the disabled community in film. Years ago I produced “The Hollywood Quad,” a TV pilot starring Bryan Cranston and the late Jim Troesh about a quadriplegic actor trying to make it in Hollywood. I’ve also written another pilot “Tornados,” a true to life dramedy set in the 1980’s, about the most unpopular kid in a Midwest high school, Tori Carty, trying to manage her dysfunctional home life, a physical disability and all of the work it takes to be a martial arts wannabe darksider. My last film, “Curiosity” had a main character who was on the spectrum.
From the filmmaker:
From earliest childhood to old age, people dance. I wanted to explore why we do it. More specifically, why do I, a 78-year-old woman, get on Zoom five mornings a week along with others, mostly women, who range in age from forty-nine to ninety-four, to dance?
WHY WE DANCE explores this question from many angles. The film is about two kinds of movement: each dancer’s unique physical expression, and our movement from one phase of life to another, seeking renewed meaning, community, and purpose as we age. Our dance teacher, Ketty Rosenfeld, a remarkably free-spirited woman in her early 60s, is the film’s driving force. An Indonesian immigrant, she welcomes all comers, and many of the dancers are immigrants.
This is a personal, hands-on project, filmed and made by the dancers themselves.
The children’s book Intersection Allies, published by Dottir Press, is an incredible, illustrated children’s book that addresses the important issues going on in today’s world about race, sexuality, class and gender. The three authors behind the book collectively have over a dozen years of experience in helping create constructive conversations about identity and social justice. It is my hope as a filmmaker and animator to bring their compassionate, empathetic book to life through animation, for children and adults to enjoy, engage with, and gain understanding about inclusion and diversity
On a trip to South Korea, 25-year-old Shelby meets Jack and confides in him her secret. When he offers to try to take her virginity – after years of battling the pain, shame and fear of vaginismus – will Shelby finally achieve what she believed was impossible?
Winning My Virginity is a twelve-minute animated film that tells the story of Shelby’s life-changing trip to South Korea, where she learns what amazing things can happen with a little bit of patience, confidence, and chance. Though the purpose of her trip is to attend her friends’ wedding and explore everything Korea has to offer, she ends up with a lot more experience than she expected: having sex, for the first time, with a man she has just met. After years of battling vaginismus, a pelvic floor condition where the muscles in and around her vagina involuntarily contract, she never thought it would happen. Men wouldn’t give her the time of day, her body wouldn’t listen to what her mind knew it wanted. So was it meeting Jack that turned the tables? Or was it traveling to the other side of the world, throwing caution to the wind, and meeting a new version of herself? Winning My Virginity will be a flirty, funny, and sweet sex-positive film about being brave, vulnerable, and 100% completely true to yourself.
Winning My Virginity is the sequel to Shelby Hadden’s short film, Tightly Wound, about her experience with pelvic floor dysfunction.
Never Again Para Nadie translates as Never Again for Anyone. It means that no one should be a target. No one should be denied their human rights. The documentary short, Never Again Para Nadie, captures a moment when a diverse group of activists attempted to peacefully hold a system accountable for holding ICE detainees for no other reason than their country of origin.
In the summer of 2020 a surge in demonstrations across the country supporting Black Lives Matter and social justice writ-large took to the streets to demand change, often meeting violent opposition. The documentary short film, Never Again Para Nadie, presages this moment by a year. Established by Jews, the organization Never Again Action seeks to put into practice the lessons of the Holocaust, including their support for undocumented and refugee neighbors, as they were once “strangers in a strange land.”
Initially, Never Again Para Nadie, will be distributed to festivals and streaming sites. But this film will also be donated, along with a free teaching tools, to educational institutions and activist organizations nationwide. Contributions will fund free digital copies of the film, accompanied by curriculum, readings and discussion guides. From middle-school to college students, community organizers and educators, we can reach thousands of people.
To date, Never Again Para Nadie has been primarily self-funded. Your financial support will help us reach people all across the country.
For more information visit: neveragaindoc.com
A short film by Joshua Gaestel
A young woman named Gradey abuses household items, desperate to escape the pain of caring for her dying father. She considers imperfect plans of escape offered by a local boy without the means to pull them off, and dreams of a better life.
CANDY CAKES is a 10 minute narrative short from Arborcast Films. It is a cathartic portrait of generational trauma, and our misguided reward systems. This drama will contrast the drab, sickly reality of substance abuse with the bright colors of advertisements and food packaging. The cinematography, art direction, and sound design will work together to capture bittersweet dreams of unattainable paradise and indulgence. An Elegy in icing.
All actors, locations, and artists will be local, and every dollar spent will be put on screen.
LOGLINE
A famous writer/director gets his laptop stolen at a local coffee shop that happens to hold the only copy of his latest screenplay. He turns to nefarious means to get it back, while the thief decides to turn his screenplay into a movie.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
We plan on going into production this summer with the goal of attracting actors with name recognition to our project with a larger than usual short film budget. When the film is complete, we will submit to film festivals in the hopes of turning this short film into a feature. When you donate to this project, your donation is 100% tax deductible.
DIRECTOR BIO
Gene Pina is an Iraq War combat veteran who served in Operation Enduring Freedom in all of 2003. Gene studied film at Columbia University and NYU and comes from a background in editing with a BA in Music Production and Technology from The Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford. He was a Video Editor/Associate Producer at ESPN for 7 years, where he worked on multiple ESPN/ESPN.COM shows and highlights.
He has worked on numerous student short films and directed his own short documentary, Mediacare, which had its premiere at the Rhode Island Film Festival!. Gene has also written a number of screenplays that have placed in various screenwriting competitions such as Slamdance, The Nicholl Fellowship and Scriptapalooza. While attending Columbia University, he interned at Pressman Film (Wall Street, American Psycho, The Crow) as a development assistant where he read scripts for the Producer Ed Pressman and wrote script coverage. When he finished school he came home to Rhode Island and worked for Producer John Santilli, CEO of Aloris Entertainment as a reader and development assistant. Most recently, Mr Santilli produced Bill & Ted 3 and the Mike Tyson/Roy Jones Jr. fight.
And finally Gene had a successful film festival run with his short film Warrior. The film played at numerous festivals around the country including two Academy Qualifiers, LA Shorts Fest and the Rhode Island Film Festival, the latter winning him the 2018 Grand Prize New England Director’s Award. Currently, he is producing corporate videos for a national mortgage company.
TAX DEDUCTIBLE GIFTS BY CHECK
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