Women In Film Shorts Night LA - Crush
Crush is a coming of age film about a girl’s first crush. One day while waiting for the train to school Ella sees Jamie. For the days to follow she can't get her out of her head.
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Rosie Westhoff
Watch Crush here:
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
This is my first short film. At first I just really wanted to direct something as I had been working as an AD for a few years and watching different directors, learning the way they worked with actors and crew. I had written a few scripts in the year leading up to Crush, but I felt for my first short, I needed to be really emotionally invested in it. A few months after writing the script I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I knew that this should be my first venture as a director.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
You should watch this film because Ella (played by Maddie Holliday) is everyone at 14! If you’re female or male – you have felt what she feels. And I think that’s nice, to watch things we can relate to that make us feel what we felt when we were young.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
I wanted to make a film about a very intense moment in a fourteen-year-old girl’s life, rather than focus on thematic ideas. By concentrating on real emotions and feelings I hope the audience can connect to it in a way that feels personal to them.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production?
The script changed from shoot to edit because some things we shot just didn’t work, but even though we lost some shots and dropped a scene the overall feeling and story didn’t change.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The feedback has been positive, particularly around the performances of the two young female actors.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
So far I’ve only screened it for cast, crew and close friends – I’m excited (and nervous!) about showing it to a wider audience.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I would love to connect with more writers and producers to work on things in the future. And maybe festival directors might see it and want to pick it up for their programme, that would be amazing!
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
At the moment for the film I need film festival directors to screen it! In about six months perhaps sales agents and distributors, platforms it can be on that’s not just my vimeo!
I’d also love to meet producers who may want to work with me on my next project.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
To be completely honest, what would make me the happiest is if 10-15 year olds like it. I do feel like this is a young adult’s film, but you never know making something like this as a 31 year old, they could just think it’s really lame… but I hope not! I hope it resonates with them and maybe even their parents too.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
One friend asked me a good question the other day. It was “What do you think Ella was feeling? Was it a romantic crush or was it more ‘I want to be like her, I want to be her friend’?”
Would you like to add anything else?
The film has been selected for three festivals so far, which unfortunately I can’t talk about yet! And I’ll continue to be submitting until around December this year so it won’t be on line until after that.
What are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I’ve just shot my second short film in Sydney, Australia. I wrote it late last year and was very keen to get something else made that again I was emotionally invested in, but was slightly easier to produce. One location, one day, one actor and very minimal crew. It’s about a young women suffering from depression. It will be a short short, 3 minutes max!
Interview: January 2017
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
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Crush
Crush is a coming of age film about a girl’s first crush. One day while waiting for the train to school Ella sees Jamie. For the days to follow she can't get her out of her head.
Length:
8 mins
Director:
Rosie Westhoff
Producer:
Rosie Westhoff
Writer:
Rosie Westhoff
About the writer, director and producer:
Rosie is a writer/director from Sydney, Australia who is based between London and Los Angeles.
Rosie strives to create honest stories with complex and diverse females at their heart. Coming from a small coastal town, nature and landscape inspire most of her work, with environment frequently used as a backdrop to represent emotion. Being part of a large working class family has also influenced her story telling, with themes such as family dynamics, friendship, resentment and the nature of love running through all of her stories.
She is a performance director who looks to build meaningful, emotional connections with the actors that she works with, and sees their work together as a collaborative exploration of emotions. Just as an actor draws on their own experiences to portray a character, Rosie feels it is essential to bring her own emotional experiences to the film as a whole.
Key cast:
Ella played by Maddie Holliday
Jamie played by Zara Mirabelle Cooper
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists):
All of the above. This was and still is a crowd funded and self funded project. I am the writer, director and producer and still entering into festivals. I’ve only been entering for a month so we’ll see what the year brings. I’m hoping I get into some!
Funders:
I never really saw it as a possibility because of money. I come from a production / AD background so there was no way I was going to do it guerilla style. I needed everything done by the book and I wanted to pay my shooting crew, and that is expensive! Luckily a good friend of mine convinced me to swallow my pride and crowd fund. And even more luckily I have amazing friends and family so $50 here and there quickly added up! So it was about 40% crowd funding 60% my own funds.
Made in association with:
Cat Dragged In Films
Where can I see it in the next month?
Crush will be playing at the WIF short film night on the 31st of January, in Los Angeles. Nothing is scheduled yet for February. It has gotten into a few festivals but those are yet to been press released so I can’t talk about them yet.