Allegiance
New York City, New York | Film Short
Family, Thriller
At a Fourth of July party, a newly sober woman is pushed to the brink when her family sides with a wealthy man who insists her sunglasses are his. Captured in one continuous shot, her real-time spiral of gaslighting tightens the vise of privilege, control, and the unraveling of the American promise.
Allegiance
New York City, New York | Film Short
Family, Thriller
1 Campaigns | New York, United States
18 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$2,345
Goal: $10,000 for production
At a Fourth of July party, a newly sober woman is pushed to the brink when her family sides with a wealthy man who insists her sunglasses are his. Captured in one continuous shot, her real-time spiral of gaslighting tightens the vise of privilege, control, and the unraveling of the American promise.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Based on a true story, Allegiance reflects how white American families often serve as a microcosm of systemic issues. The pattern of sweeping problems under the rug to preserve comfort and avoid conflict perpetuates injustice and upholds white supremacy. An innovative and political short that needs to be told now.
Allegiance is a tense look at a woman’s attempt to navigate her white Connecticut family during a chaotic Fourth of July gathering. Mary Claire, in her early 30s and newly sober, arrives at her relatives’ house and quickly finds herself caught in a swirl of overconsumption, superficial conversations, and overstimulation. Things escalate when a wealthy family friend claims her sunglasses as his own, but her family seems unwilling to support her turn of events.
Although Mary Claire's Aunt Denise is at first on her side, she's unable to protect her from the more predatory guests. MC's cousin Leelee might have more in common with her if she was able to be honest about her own deep unhappiness with her husband, Todd. The film builds to a climactic and tense moment as Mary Claire is pushed to more self destructive behavior and family members are forced to take sides.
Allegiance offers a pointed, often darkly humorous meditation on the struggles young people have in maintaining personal integrity amid family pressures and social expectations, all against the backdrop of America’s most jingoistic day.
Mary Claire: Newly sober and definitely doesn't want to be there. Mary Claire is headstrong, a little messy, and very uncomfortable with the trappings of her white extended Connecticut family. As pressures mount, will Mary Claire say what's unspoken, in a family where everything is always "perfect"?
Leelee: Mary Claire's cousin. Perpetually tipsy, "former Democrat," and deeply unhappy in her marriage. Leelee and Mary Claire used to be quite close, but politics and time have pushed them further apart. When Mary Claire asks for back-up, will Leelee drop the facade and help her?
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Mark: Leelee's husband, a wealthy job-to-job entrepreneur type who has a "drain the swamp" sticker on his car. When Mary Claire accuses his buddy Todd of taking her glasses, Mark doesn't support her for a second.
Todd: A wealthy older white man who is closing a deal with Mark. Owns a vineyard, and won't shut up about the terroir. Takes Mary Claire's sunglasses, either because he thinks they're his or he thinks he's entitled to them either way...
Aunt Denise: Mary Claire's beloved auntie, who has gotten her out of tight spots before. Warm and a supplementary motherly figure, Aunt Denise is seemingly the only safe person in the entire July 4th party.
Director's Statement from Kelly:
In a deeply problematic 2026 America, how can one short film expose the rot and absurdity of the American promise. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?"
I have complicated feelings about this country. I spent my childhood across 8 different countries (including Gitmo... don't get me started) because of the work my dad did for this country. And a large part of my worldview came from seeing the toxicity of nationalism at work.
And then as a young woman, so much of my life was shaped by the privilege of my whiteness, but also the restrictions on my gender. You're a fool if you don't think intersectionality is real.
I’ve been gaslit. I’ve benefited by what I look like. I’ve had explosive family functions. I’ve struggled with my place in the world. I’ve also been at Al-Anon and struggled with my own relationship to alcohol. I love that this complex piece tackles a lot of these issues.
Allegiance is the culmination of a fruitful collaboration with writer/actor Emily Hooper, and an excavation of all of these issues. I’m thrilled to explore all of them in this one continuous shot short film. It’s a deeply technical and theatrical film that has the conflict and tempo of Boiling Point (2019) mixed with some of the tone and ironic bite of Shiva Baby (2020). The way we follow a sober person through a triggering family event will remind you of Rachel Getting Married (2008). Less about alcohol and more about how some families of privilege struggle to talk about what's really going on below the surface, much to the detriment of everyone around them.
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About that one-shot set-up... Obviously a huge inspiration for the visual language is the work of Philip Barantini, director of the short (and feature length version) of Boiling Point, as well as the Netflix show Adolescence. I also love the film Victoria, which uses a oner to show how circumstances can spiral out of control.
Allegiance draws on these references to demonstrate how the camera can follow a protagonist but is free to follow a different character who might deliver a new piece of information. The point is to have the camera lead with curiosity from action to action, and to highlight rising anxiety and conflict without giving the audience (or the characters) an opportunity to take a breather.
By never allowing the camera to cut from the action, the audience remains objective yet powerless while the characters dispute the ownership of the sunglasses.
Let's talk about budget! Our current budget is a (very) slim $14,500. If you’ve made short films before, you know this is ambitious! But we're busy applying for grants, and knowing we'll have to front some of the money ourselves. We're trying to raise $8,000 to get us through production.
All of the money we raise will go towards the following:
Production — Our goal is to make this film as efficiently and safely as possible. Production costs will allow us to pay and feed our cast and crew, who are extremely valuable and talented. This is a scrappy production, but we still need the basics. While we’ve saved on location, it costs money to transport cast/crew/gear to that location in Connecticut. While we have found ways to make our crew lean, it is a large cast and we need to make sure everyone is housed safely and fed properly. We are filming with a small but extremely experienced and talented cast and crew over 2 days in Connecticut. One day will purely be rehearsals of the sequence. And the other day will be a series of takes back to back, running the sequence. And then the film will ultimately be just choosing the best take from the day.
Reach Goals — If we surpass our initial funding goal, we want to invest in marketing and festival submission fees so that we can share this film with as many people as possible!
Help us hit these milestones:
$4,000 — Crew wages
$2,000— Set food and crafty
$2,000 — Location, rentals, and permit
$8,000 — Total. If you can help us get passed this goal, we'd also be eternally grateful!
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Here are ways to support:
- Pledge to this campaign!
- Follow our official instagram page @allegiance_theshortfilm and support us there!
- Share our campaign via your social media, email, word-of-mouth, however you want! Here’s an example of what you could share (ready to copy/paste): Support the short film ALLEGIANCE! 'Allegiance' is about Mary Claire, newly sober woman who is pushed to the brink when her family sides with a wealthy man who insists her sunglasses are his. Captured in one continuous shot, her real-time spiral of gaslighting tightens the vise of privilege, control, and the unraveling of the American promise. Support writer @hoops_ididitagain and director @kellyraemac on @seedandspark by going to this link: https://seedandspark.com/fund/allegiance-short-film
Follow this campaign on Seed & Spark. Let's get to 250 followers on this platform.
Thank you! We're very grateful for your support!
If for some reason, you're more comfortable pledging to our campaign not on the Seed&Spark platform, please email Kelly at [email protected]
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Crew Wages
Costs $4,000
People deserve to be paid for their time and talent. We're keeping costs low, but this is a paid opportunity for these artists.
Set food and crafty
Costs $2,000
We're cooking the majority of our own food (and packing, freezing, and defrosting on set), but we still need help feeding a large group!
Location, Rentals, and Permit
Costs $2,000
Locations aren't free, and neither are the boring bits of paper that allow us to legally and safely film there. Help us secure a location!
Camera and gear rentals
Costs $2,000
Not only does our camera team need money for rentals, but our SOUND team has to be extra inventive because of the one-shot situation.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Emily Hooper (she/her): Writer and Co-Producer. Emily Hooper is a multi-hyphenate actor, writer and producer, most notable for her appearance in the 2018 Oscar-nominated short film, ‘My Nephew Emmett.’ Other film acting projects include ‘Hercules’ and ‘Ride to Remember,’ and feature The Hills Ablaze (DP: Oscar-Nominated Sam Cutler-Creutz). Her producing works include short films ‘Love is a Test’ and ‘All Goes Back to Earth,’ which she also starred in. As a screenwriter, she is currently writing a queer Western feature. She is most beholden to the demands of her tiny tyrant, sausage dog Eustace Bratwurst.
Kelly McCready (she/they): Director and Co-Producer. Kelly McCready is a writer/director/actor and photographer/cinematographer from Australia who now resides in Brooklyn, NY. Kelly came to the United States to study theatre and political science, and then found herself staying longer than she thought she would. Because of the work her parents did, Kelly lived in seven different countries by the time she was 18. That list includes England, Cuba, Germany, Spain, Guam and Australia. She studied at Case Western Reserve University and the Moscow Art Theatre School. The stories she’s most interested in usually have a social slant: gender issues, sexuality, climate change, the conflation between religion and morality, and the rise of fascism.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Based on a true story, Allegiance reflects how white American families often serve as a microcosm of systemic issues. The pattern of sweeping problems under the rug to preserve comfort and avoid conflict perpetuates injustice and upholds white supremacy. An innovative and political short that needs to be told now.
Allegiance is a tense look at a woman’s attempt to navigate her white Connecticut family during a chaotic Fourth of July gathering. Mary Claire, in her early 30s and newly sober, arrives at her relatives’ house and quickly finds herself caught in a swirl of overconsumption, superficial conversations, and overstimulation. Things escalate when a wealthy family friend claims her sunglasses as his own, but her family seems unwilling to support her turn of events.
Although Mary Claire's Aunt Denise is at first on her side, she's unable to protect her from the more predatory guests. MC's cousin Leelee might have more in common with her if she was able to be honest about her own deep unhappiness with her husband, Todd. The film builds to a climactic and tense moment as Mary Claire is pushed to more self destructive behavior and family members are forced to take sides.
Allegiance offers a pointed, often darkly humorous meditation on the struggles young people have in maintaining personal integrity amid family pressures and social expectations, all against the backdrop of America’s most jingoistic day.
Mary Claire: Newly sober and definitely doesn't want to be there. Mary Claire is headstrong, a little messy, and very uncomfortable with the trappings of her white extended Connecticut family. As pressures mount, will Mary Claire say what's unspoken, in a family where everything is always "perfect"?
Leelee: Mary Claire's cousin. Perpetually tipsy, "former Democrat," and deeply unhappy in her marriage. Leelee and Mary Claire used to be quite close, but politics and time have pushed them further apart. When Mary Claire asks for back-up, will Leelee drop the facade and help her?
Mark: Leelee's husband, a wealthy job-to-job entrepreneur type who has a "drain the swamp" sticker on his car. When Mary Claire accuses his buddy Todd of taking her glasses, Mark doesn't support her for a second.
Todd: A wealthy older white man who is closing a deal with Mark. Owns a vineyard, and won't shut up about the terroir. Takes Mary Claire's sunglasses, either because he thinks they're his or he thinks he's entitled to them either way...
Aunt Denise: Mary Claire's beloved auntie, who has gotten her out of tight spots before. Warm and a supplementary motherly figure, Aunt Denise is seemingly the only safe person in the entire July 4th party.
Director's Statement from Kelly:
In a deeply problematic 2026 America, how can one short film expose the rot and absurdity of the American promise. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?"
I have complicated feelings about this country. I spent my childhood across 8 different countries (including Gitmo... don't get me started) because of the work my dad did for this country. And a large part of my worldview came from seeing the toxicity of nationalism at work.
And then as a young woman, so much of my life was shaped by the privilege of my whiteness, but also the restrictions on my gender. You're a fool if you don't think intersectionality is real.
I’ve been gaslit. I’ve benefited by what I look like. I’ve had explosive family functions. I’ve struggled with my place in the world. I’ve also been at Al-Anon and struggled with my own relationship to alcohol. I love that this complex piece tackles a lot of these issues.
Allegiance is the culmination of a fruitful collaboration with writer/actor Emily Hooper, and an excavation of all of these issues. I’m thrilled to explore all of them in this one continuous shot short film. It’s a deeply technical and theatrical film that has the conflict and tempo of Boiling Point (2019) mixed with some of the tone and ironic bite of Shiva Baby (2020). The way we follow a sober person through a triggering family event will remind you of Rachel Getting Married (2008). Less about alcohol and more about how some families of privilege struggle to talk about what's really going on below the surface, much to the detriment of everyone around them.
About that one-shot set-up... Obviously a huge inspiration for the visual language is the work of Philip Barantini, director of the short (and feature length version) of Boiling Point, as well as the Netflix show Adolescence. I also love the film Victoria, which uses a oner to show how circumstances can spiral out of control.
Allegiance draws on these references to demonstrate how the camera can follow a protagonist but is free to follow a different character who might deliver a new piece of information. The point is to have the camera lead with curiosity from action to action, and to highlight rising anxiety and conflict without giving the audience (or the characters) an opportunity to take a breather.
By never allowing the camera to cut from the action, the audience remains objective yet powerless while the characters dispute the ownership of the sunglasses.
Let's talk about budget! Our current budget is a (very) slim $14,500. If you’ve made short films before, you know this is ambitious! But we're busy applying for grants, and knowing we'll have to front some of the money ourselves. We're trying to raise $8,000 to get us through production.
All of the money we raise will go towards the following:
Production — Our goal is to make this film as efficiently and safely as possible. Production costs will allow us to pay and feed our cast and crew, who are extremely valuable and talented. This is a scrappy production, but we still need the basics. While we’ve saved on location, it costs money to transport cast/crew/gear to that location in Connecticut. While we have found ways to make our crew lean, it is a large cast and we need to make sure everyone is housed safely and fed properly. We are filming with a small but extremely experienced and talented cast and crew over 2 days in Connecticut. One day will purely be rehearsals of the sequence. And the other day will be a series of takes back to back, running the sequence. And then the film will ultimately be just choosing the best take from the day.
Reach Goals — If we surpass our initial funding goal, we want to invest in marketing and festival submission fees so that we can share this film with as many people as possible!
Help us hit these milestones:
$4,000 — Crew wages
$2,000— Set food and crafty
$2,000 — Location, rentals, and permit
$8,000 — Total. If you can help us get passed this goal, we'd also be eternally grateful!
Here are ways to support:
- Pledge to this campaign!
- Follow our official instagram page @allegiance_theshortfilm and support us there!
- Share our campaign via your social media, email, word-of-mouth, however you want! Here’s an example of what you could share (ready to copy/paste): Support the short film ALLEGIANCE! 'Allegiance' is about Mary Claire, newly sober woman who is pushed to the brink when her family sides with a wealthy man who insists her sunglasses are his. Captured in one continuous shot, her real-time spiral of gaslighting tightens the vise of privilege, control, and the unraveling of the American promise. Support writer @hoops_ididitagain and director @kellyraemac on @seedandspark by going to this link: https://seedandspark.com/fund/allegiance-short-film
Follow this campaign on Seed & Spark. Let's get to 250 followers on this platform.
Thank you! We're very grateful for your support!
If for some reason, you're more comfortable pledging to our campaign not on the Seed&Spark platform, please email Kelly at [email protected]
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Crew Wages
Costs $4,000
People deserve to be paid for their time and talent. We're keeping costs low, but this is a paid opportunity for these artists.
Set food and crafty
Costs $2,000
We're cooking the majority of our own food (and packing, freezing, and defrosting on set), but we still need help feeding a large group!
Location, Rentals, and Permit
Costs $2,000
Locations aren't free, and neither are the boring bits of paper that allow us to legally and safely film there. Help us secure a location!
Camera and gear rentals
Costs $2,000
Not only does our camera team need money for rentals, but our SOUND team has to be extra inventive because of the one-shot situation.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Emily Hooper (she/her): Writer and Co-Producer. Emily Hooper is a multi-hyphenate actor, writer and producer, most notable for her appearance in the 2018 Oscar-nominated short film, ‘My Nephew Emmett.’ Other film acting projects include ‘Hercules’ and ‘Ride to Remember,’ and feature The Hills Ablaze (DP: Oscar-Nominated Sam Cutler-Creutz). Her producing works include short films ‘Love is a Test’ and ‘All Goes Back to Earth,’ which she also starred in. As a screenwriter, she is currently writing a queer Western feature. She is most beholden to the demands of her tiny tyrant, sausage dog Eustace Bratwurst.
Kelly McCready (she/they): Director and Co-Producer. Kelly McCready is a writer/director/actor and photographer/cinematographer from Australia who now resides in Brooklyn, NY. Kelly came to the United States to study theatre and political science, and then found herself staying longer than she thought she would. Because of the work her parents did, Kelly lived in seven different countries by the time she was 18. That list includes England, Cuba, Germany, Spain, Guam and Australia. She studied at Case Western Reserve University and the Moscow Art Theatre School. The stories she’s most interested in usually have a social slant: gender issues, sexuality, climate change, the conflation between religion and morality, and the rise of fascism.