From Feet To Film

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In 2023-2024, I almost died.  I lost my father to old age, and my former partner to suicide.  I lost my health, my career as a podiatrist, and found new love.  In a time of such incredible transition, I found myself thinking a lot about what matters.  Family.  Love.  Support of friends.  And stories.  Stories matter.  

As I transitioned from writing poems of grief, I began taking acting classes.  In one such class, I spied three amazing actresses who brought wit, passion, and talent to personal monologues they wrote and performed.  These delightful humans inspired me, and I told them that weekend in class--I'm going to write us a movie.  Two days later, I had the first draft of You Don't Say.  

The film was inspired by them, and by the religious and political differences that I experienced in my own family over the last 7 years.  As the world divided, so did we.  Processing our differences while still seeing our goodness and value individually and collectively has consumed much of my time.  How do you reach out?  How do you communicate?  How do you see the humanity in each other and keep the love strong?  My family came together after my father's death in a way that inspired me. This film is my love letter to them.

I hope you see the humanity, humor, and love in this work, and are inspired to see that no matter what tribe we think someone belongs to, we can wrap them in love and make them ours.  As the movie shows, we may not be able to control what happens in the world or in our country, but we can control ourselves (most of the time...).  

We are all human, after all.

You Don't Say has applied for fiscal sponsorship with a Non-profit Sponsor to be able to raise money for our production.  When approved, you will be able to donate to the film production budget AND get a tax deduction for doing so.  You can be a part of raising $20,000 to take the screenplay to Festival, where we hope to win MORE AWARDS!