Arcadia
Santa Cruz, California | Film Short
Drama, Thriller
During a dark summer plagued with mudslides, 18-year-old Juliet joins a prestigious theatre troupe. As she becomes more absorbed in the troupe, her hunt for sexual power blurs lines of prey and predator.
Arcadia
Santa Cruz, California | Film Short
Drama, Thriller
1 Campaigns | New York, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $20,310 for pre-production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
120 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
During a dark summer plagued with mudslides, 18-year-old Juliet joins a prestigious theatre troupe. As she becomes more absorbed in the troupe, her hunt for sexual power blurs lines of prey and predator.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Juliet spends her last summer home before college on her small farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her party-girl mother, Amy. After a brutal fire season, the farmland is drowned in persistent rain and mudslides.
She is recruited to perform with a world-renowned theatre troupe. Known for their adaptations of morbid fairy tales, the troupe devises “The Myth of Dogskin” in which a human bride must prove her love to her murderous dog-man groom. Despite being the youngest member of the troupe, Juliet is treated as superior to her cohort by rakish director Jake.
Juliet uncovers her own darkness and sexuality as encouraged in rehearsals. Rather than shy away from it, she uses it as a weapon to gain control. First, she chases after the troupe’s leading man, Arthur. Once she conquers and discards him, her appetite deepens and she directs her hunt towards Jake.
Arcadia is itself a dark fairytale in which Juliet transforms from child to woman to beast.
Lucy Urbano (Juliet) and director Chloe Xtina on set for Ghost of you (2023).
Arcadia is supported by the Sundance Institute through my year-long fellowship with Sundance Ignite and Adobe. I’ve spent the past few months workshopping Arcadia with my fellowship cohort and mentor, writer-director Laurel Parmet (The Starling Girl).
My last film, Ghost of you explores how the male gaze becomes internalized, infecting a girlhood. Arcadia implodes the identity of "victim" which is projected onto young women by the male gaze, and frames the teenage protagonist as the ravenous beast society fails to protect its girls from.
I spent my childhood -- and now adulthood -- in performing arts spaces. As a young girl, I was eager to be seen as mature and special for my age. I let the men in charge of these spaces believe they had access to my sexuality. In exchange, they gave me power over my peers. This is a hard truth I’ve spent many years reconciling with -- was I seen for my talent or was I seen for my body? Can both things be true at once?
Rather than a victim-predator dynamic, I’m interested in the precarious power of a young, attractive woman versus the systemic power of an older man. I want to validate both forms while examining which power has the real authority to imprint upon Juliet. Arcadia is fully from Juliet’s point-of-view, we never leave her side.
Despite all this, tenderness sits at the heart of our film. Juliet’s strained relationship with her mother Amy frames our story. Much like my own childhood, Amy fills the house with friends and endless celebration, reminding us it is possible to be in the company of older people while still feeling safe and seen.
I grew up in Northern California and believe its forests, creeks, and cliffs are the most beautiful in the world. But growing up in California also meant being witness to frequent wildfires, violent mudslides, and an overall rapidly changing climate. Arcadia is set in Santa Cruz during a particularly brutal rain season to represent chaos in Juliet’s world. We will be shooting on farmland, repurposed barns, and amid the redwoods with the support of some incredible community members in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area.
Chloe at age 5 in a creek in the Redwood Forest.
Among our production team are beloved collaborators Charlie Stuip (producer/editor), Alyssa Bonfigli and Beatrice Brown (producers, Blackdove Pictures), Vittoria Campaner (director of photography), Cat Pfingst (production and costume designer), MJ Upstairs (original score), Tatum Anderson (sound designer/mixer), and Ellie Zambarano (casting director). Our cast is led by Lucy Urbano as Juliet and Logan Miller as Arthur, featuring Alaska Reid and MJ Upstairs in supporting roles. We are all eager to share this story with you!
Images from our look book (full look book available upon request).
The film draws inspiration from the gritty, feminized worlds of Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Red Riding Hood), Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), and Andrea Arnold (Wuthering Heights). It also meditates on quiet, slice-of-life horror like that of Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk and the improvisational, controlled chaos of Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline. Arcadia also pays homage to the synth-pop horror films of the 80s and its soundscape is inspired by the music of ML Buch, Alaska Reid, and Liz Phair. The theatre collective is based in part on Kneehigh Theatre and Emma Rice’s Wise Children -- two theatre troupes that stage devised adaptations of myths and classics to a larger-than-life degree.
Like many of the films that inspire Arcadia, we will shoot on 16mm film to heighten the strange nostalgia of a first encounter with sexuality. Shooting on 16mm also adds a deceitful romance to Juliet’s point-of-view.
We’re raising $25,000 in 30 days, the minimum needed to pay for locations, housing, gear, travel, food, covid safety, the fantastical sets of our play within the film, and compensation for our cast and crew.
Cast - $3,450
Crew - $6,400
Equipment/Food/Location/Housing/Production Design - $11,700
Post Production - $3,450
We are confident that with our experience, support from the Sundance Institute, and most importantly support from you, our artistic community, we CAN raise 25,000. Consider making a pledge! It comes with cool sexy perks.
We are currently charging through pre-production with shoot-dates planned for early April.
- December-March 2024: Pre-Production -- We’re currently here! We are in the midst of casting, confirming locations, gathering our crew, creating the look of the film with our director of photography and production designer, rehearsing, and of course, fundraising.
- Early April 2024: Production -- We will shoot the film over 4 days in Santa Cruz, CA.
- April-July 2024: Post-Production -- Editing, scoring, sound mixing, coloring, adding special effects, creating graphics, and having rounds of feedback with our closest collaborators.
- Late July 2024: Picture Lock -- Our final cut is ready and we begin submitting to film festivals.
- 2025: Release -- Our goal is to premiere the film at acclaimed film festivals in late 2024 and early-mid 2025, with a public release with an online distributor in 2025.
Donations aren't the only way you can help bring our film to life! We'd be so happy to see this link shared on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email blasts, whatever works for you! When you use the hashtag #arcadiafilm, you're supporting narratives that center complex women and empowering a story very special to us. Follow the film's progress along on social media @blackdovepictures @chl0extina
Equipment, props, costumes, and food are also all essential donations our team could use. If you'd rather donate something to us directly, don't hesitate to reach out.
Curious about my work before Arcadia? My most recent film, Ghost of you, just screened in a special screening at Sundance. Screeners are available to you upon request. My first film, The First Taste, is available on NoBudge where it was a 2020 Film of the Year. You can learn more about my work as a filmmaker and playwright at my website.
Ghost of you (2023)
The First Taste (2020)
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Compensation for Cast & Crew
Costs $9,850
A pledge will help us financially support our team <3
Location
Costs $1,500
Our Santa Cruz community is allowing us to shoot on luscious farmland, a sexy dive bar, and a rustic theater. A pledge shows our gratitude!
Equipment Costs
Costs $4,400
Covers S16mm camera package + lights + sound equipment. All of this gear will give Arcadia the look of a dark fairytale.
Meals & Crafty
Costs $1,800
A pledge helps us feed our team nourishing meals!
Post-Production
Costs $3,450
To support our editor, composer, sound designer/mixer, colorist, and submit to festivals.
Accommodations & Travel
Costs $4,000
A pledge helps us ferry our brilliant collaborators from LA and NY and give them a cozy place to sleep.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Chloe Xtina (writer-director) and Vittoria Campaner (director of photography)
Chloe Xtina (Writer-Director)
Chloe Xtina (she/her) is a 2023 Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellow. She wrote and directed the short films GHOST OF YOU (2023 Sundance Ignite Selection, special screening 2024 Sundance Film Festival) and THE FIRST TASTE (2020 NoBudge Film of the Year). Chloe and her work have been featured in New York Magazine, Variety, Vulture, and TimeOut. Her play Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California had its Off-Broadway debut this summer in a Brooklyn bodega with a sold-out run and subsequent sold-out extension. She completed a BA in playwriting from UCLA in 2021 and is originally from Oakland, California. She is based in Brooklyn. You can learn more about Chloe and her work at chloextina.com
Vittoria Campaner (Director of Photography)
Vittoria is a Los Angeles-based Italian cinematographer who has worked internationally in Italy, France, Norway, China, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States. Her work has been showcased in 100+ international film festivals, museums, and theaters, including SXSW, MountainFilm Festival Telluride, and Palm Springs International ShortFest, and has been featured in The New Yorker, Deadline, IndieWire and more. In 2020 she was selected as a Cinematography Fellow for the ASC vision program and Film Independent’s Project Involve. Beyond cinematography, she writes and directs her own films. Her short “DYE RED” won the award for Best Experimental Narrative Short at the 51st Nashville Film Festival and has screened in 30+ international festivals. Most recently, she participated in the Playlab residency in Peru, during which she directed a film shot in the Amazon forest under the mentorship of renowned Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, which is currently in post-production. She is an SR3 S16mm camera owner.
Lucy Urbano (Cast: Juliet)
Lucy Urbano is a Los Angeles based actress and writer. She is a 2023 graduate of UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, where she studied acting and playwriting. Favorite stage roles include Hamlet (Hamlet), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Roberta), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Margaret.) She has studied acting at Oakland School for the Arts (where she met Chloe!), Fontainebleau School of Acting, Alexander Techworks (with Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad), and improv at Upright Citizens Brigade. She starred in Sweethart dir. Charlie Stuip, now streaming on NoBudge, and in the feature film Low Life (XYZ Films) which premiered at Raindance Film Festival in London and is now streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime, and AppleTV. She is honored to be working with Chloe again after playing Mae in Ghost of you, which premiered at Sundance through the Sundance Ignite Fellowship. Lucy grew up in Berkeley, California.
Logan Miller (Cast: Arthur)
Born in Colorado and now making a name for himself in Hollywood, Logan Miller started appearing in TV shows and movies in early 2008. Then, in 2009, his popularity gained a significant boost when he became a regular in “I’m in the Band,” a Disney’s original series set in the suburbs, as a teenager and also the lead guitarist for his favorite washed up rock band. Today, the length and breadth of his career includes starring in the Escape Room horror franchise, supporting roles in Love, Simon and Shithouse, a major role in Sundance’s Take Me to the River and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, as one of the leads in the drama You Can Choose Your Family, a role in acclaimed TV series “The Walking Dead” as well as voice-acting roles in animated features (such as “Ultimate Spider-Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy”) and video games (from “Marvel Heroes” to “Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes” and “Disney Infinity 3.0.”).
Alaska Reid (Cast: Summer)
Sophia Alaska Reid, better known by her stage name Alaska Reid, is a singer, songwriter, and musician from Park County, Montana, an enclave for writers, artists and ranchers of the American West. From age 14, she began gigging around LA. Eventually during her time in LA after becoming fatigued by the way she was seen as a young female singer-songwriter, Reid began to lean into her obsession with loud guitars and fuzz (thanks to her favorite band, Dinosaur Jr.). She formed a band, cold messaged John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile etc…) on Facebook and ended up releasing an album produced by him, entitled Crush.
Reid's first single from her debut EP, "Boys From Town", exists as a clear amalgamation of her upbringing from Montana to Los Angeles, tying together notes of country and Americana with lightened pop and poignant lyricism. This song arrived ahead of her debut EP, “Big Bunny”, released on December 11, 2020 via Terrible Records. Reid toured the US with indie rock outfit Del Water Gap until early December 2021. She spent 2022 working on her next release, and supporting Charli XCX during “Crash the Live Tour”, as well as Porches, Magdalena Bay and the Drums. In February 2023, she supported Maya Hawke on her European tour. In March 2023, Reid released "Back To This" as a single from her album Disenchanter, released on July 14, 2023 via Gorilla vs Bear's Luminelle Recordings label.
Alyssa Bonfigli (producer), Beatrice Brown (producer), and Charlie Stuip (producer/editor)
Blackdove Pictures (Production Company)
Blackdove focuses on challenging the cis-white male norms of entertainment by understanding how we, as a fem production company, occupy space and foster a creative environment focused on free expression.
Alyssa Grace Bonfigli (Producer)
Alyssa Grace Bonfigli is a UCLA graduate trained in performance theory, arts activism, and visual studies. She explores the meaning of the body and its location while seeking to create art that lives outside the confines of comfortability: revealing instead the beauty of disorientation and ambiguity in free movement.
Beatrice Brown (Producer)
Beatrice Brown is a recent grad from UCLA. Along with producing, she writes, directs, does production design, and performs in a number of the Blackdove Pictures productions. Her inspiration for filmmaking comes from a passion for literature. It is not necessarily the stories which influence her creatively, but rather the images which play in her mind when she reads a particularly vivid passage. She thanks those authors, Zadie Smith, Milan Kundera, and Jonathon Safran-Foer among many others who have helped shape, foster, and ignite her creative imagination.
Charlie Stuip (Producer/Editor)
Charlie Stuip is a writer and filmmaker. She studied screenwriting at UCLA, where she wrote and directed Sweethart (streaming on NoBudge) and Living Room Play, both starring Lucy Urbano. Charlie is currently producing films by Chloe Xtina and Roma Edwards while working on a book of poetry. charliestuip.com
MJ Upstairs (original score/cast: Lucia), Cat Pfingst (production and costume designer), and Tatum Anderson (sound designer/mixer)
MJ Upstairs (Original Score/Cast: Lucia)
MJ is a songwriter, musician, and sound designer in the thick of creating her second album. She likes eavesdropping, sound collage, Pauline Oliveros, and PJ Harvey. Keep up at mjupstairs.com
Cat Pfingst (Production and Costume Designer)
Before she moved to Brooklyn, Cat lived in Philadelphia where she graduated from Drexel University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Design. Since then, she has found energy within many overlapping creative sectors, and has worked on previous productions with Chloe Xtina which involved styling, scenic design, and prop making. Through the use of existing materials, Cat seeks to fabricate new realms. She is often inspired by the tension between day-to-day mundanity and the fantastical.
Tatum Anderson (Sound Designer/Mixer)
Tatum is an audiohead doubling as a freelance sound designer and a full-time production manager. She’s always thrilled to collaborate with Chloe Xtina, a fellow Bay Area native and UCLA grad. She loves the weird and the whimsical and can’t wait to tell this story through sound.
Ellie Zambarano (casting director) and Soryn Mouton (graphic designer)
Ellie Zambarano (Casting Director)
Ellie Zambarano is a casting director and producer originally from Austin, TX. Her experience is primarily in non-traditional casting, previously working for directors Chloé Zhao, Joshua James Richards, and Carlos López Estrada, and with Vicky Boone Casting out of ATX. Most recently, she was a producer on Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California, which had its off-Broadway run to a sold-out audience in a Brooklyn bodega. She currently works with Brooklyn-based production company Storm City Films and holds a BFA in musical theatre from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Soryn Mouton (Graphic Designer)
Soryn Mouton is an artist and designer born, raised, & based in Los Angeles, CA. She holds a BFA from the Cooper Union and is currently a graphic designer at Stept Studios as well as a freelance designer specializing in film titles, posters, and director’s treatments. She also dabbles in drawing, writing, and playing guitar.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Juliet spends her last summer home before college on her small farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her party-girl mother, Amy. After a brutal fire season, the farmland is drowned in persistent rain and mudslides.
She is recruited to perform with a world-renowned theatre troupe. Known for their adaptations of morbid fairy tales, the troupe devises “The Myth of Dogskin” in which a human bride must prove her love to her murderous dog-man groom. Despite being the youngest member of the troupe, Juliet is treated as superior to her cohort by rakish director Jake.
Juliet uncovers her own darkness and sexuality as encouraged in rehearsals. Rather than shy away from it, she uses it as a weapon to gain control. First, she chases after the troupe’s leading man, Arthur. Once she conquers and discards him, her appetite deepens and she directs her hunt towards Jake.
Arcadia is itself a dark fairytale in which Juliet transforms from child to woman to beast.
Lucy Urbano (Juliet) and director Chloe Xtina on set for Ghost of you (2023).
Arcadia is supported by the Sundance Institute through my year-long fellowship with Sundance Ignite and Adobe. I’ve spent the past few months workshopping Arcadia with my fellowship cohort and mentor, writer-director Laurel Parmet (The Starling Girl).
My last film, Ghost of you explores how the male gaze becomes internalized, infecting a girlhood. Arcadia implodes the identity of "victim" which is projected onto young women by the male gaze, and frames the teenage protagonist as the ravenous beast society fails to protect its girls from.
I spent my childhood -- and now adulthood -- in performing arts spaces. As a young girl, I was eager to be seen as mature and special for my age. I let the men in charge of these spaces believe they had access to my sexuality. In exchange, they gave me power over my peers. This is a hard truth I’ve spent many years reconciling with -- was I seen for my talent or was I seen for my body? Can both things be true at once?
Rather than a victim-predator dynamic, I’m interested in the precarious power of a young, attractive woman versus the systemic power of an older man. I want to validate both forms while examining which power has the real authority to imprint upon Juliet. Arcadia is fully from Juliet’s point-of-view, we never leave her side.
Despite all this, tenderness sits at the heart of our film. Juliet’s strained relationship with her mother Amy frames our story. Much like my own childhood, Amy fills the house with friends and endless celebration, reminding us it is possible to be in the company of older people while still feeling safe and seen.
I grew up in Northern California and believe its forests, creeks, and cliffs are the most beautiful in the world. But growing up in California also meant being witness to frequent wildfires, violent mudslides, and an overall rapidly changing climate. Arcadia is set in Santa Cruz during a particularly brutal rain season to represent chaos in Juliet’s world. We will be shooting on farmland, repurposed barns, and amid the redwoods with the support of some incredible community members in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area.
Chloe at age 5 in a creek in the Redwood Forest.
Among our production team are beloved collaborators Charlie Stuip (producer/editor), Alyssa Bonfigli and Beatrice Brown (producers, Blackdove Pictures), Vittoria Campaner (director of photography), Cat Pfingst (production and costume designer), MJ Upstairs (original score), Tatum Anderson (sound designer/mixer), and Ellie Zambarano (casting director). Our cast is led by Lucy Urbano as Juliet and Logan Miller as Arthur, featuring Alaska Reid and MJ Upstairs in supporting roles. We are all eager to share this story with you!
Images from our look book (full look book available upon request).
The film draws inspiration from the gritty, feminized worlds of Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Red Riding Hood), Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), and Andrea Arnold (Wuthering Heights). It also meditates on quiet, slice-of-life horror like that of Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk and the improvisational, controlled chaos of Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline. Arcadia also pays homage to the synth-pop horror films of the 80s and its soundscape is inspired by the music of ML Buch, Alaska Reid, and Liz Phair. The theatre collective is based in part on Kneehigh Theatre and Emma Rice’s Wise Children -- two theatre troupes that stage devised adaptations of myths and classics to a larger-than-life degree.
Like many of the films that inspire Arcadia, we will shoot on 16mm film to heighten the strange nostalgia of a first encounter with sexuality. Shooting on 16mm also adds a deceitful romance to Juliet’s point-of-view.
We’re raising $25,000 in 30 days, the minimum needed to pay for locations, housing, gear, travel, food, covid safety, the fantastical sets of our play within the film, and compensation for our cast and crew.
Cast - $3,450
Crew - $6,400
Equipment/Food/Location/Housing/Production Design - $11,700
Post Production - $3,450
We are confident that with our experience, support from the Sundance Institute, and most importantly support from you, our artistic community, we CAN raise 25,000. Consider making a pledge! It comes with cool sexy perks.
We are currently charging through pre-production with shoot-dates planned for early April.
- December-March 2024: Pre-Production -- We’re currently here! We are in the midst of casting, confirming locations, gathering our crew, creating the look of the film with our director of photography and production designer, rehearsing, and of course, fundraising.
- Early April 2024: Production -- We will shoot the film over 4 days in Santa Cruz, CA.
- April-July 2024: Post-Production -- Editing, scoring, sound mixing, coloring, adding special effects, creating graphics, and having rounds of feedback with our closest collaborators.
- Late July 2024: Picture Lock -- Our final cut is ready and we begin submitting to film festivals.
- 2025: Release -- Our goal is to premiere the film at acclaimed film festivals in late 2024 and early-mid 2025, with a public release with an online distributor in 2025.
Donations aren't the only way you can help bring our film to life! We'd be so happy to see this link shared on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email blasts, whatever works for you! When you use the hashtag #arcadiafilm, you're supporting narratives that center complex women and empowering a story very special to us. Follow the film's progress along on social media @blackdovepictures @chl0extina
Equipment, props, costumes, and food are also all essential donations our team could use. If you'd rather donate something to us directly, don't hesitate to reach out.
Curious about my work before Arcadia? My most recent film, Ghost of you, just screened in a special screening at Sundance. Screeners are available to you upon request. My first film, The First Taste, is available on NoBudge where it was a 2020 Film of the Year. You can learn more about my work as a filmmaker and playwright at my website.
Ghost of you (2023)
The First Taste (2020)
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Compensation for Cast & Crew
Costs $9,850
A pledge will help us financially support our team <3
Location
Costs $1,500
Our Santa Cruz community is allowing us to shoot on luscious farmland, a sexy dive bar, and a rustic theater. A pledge shows our gratitude!
Equipment Costs
Costs $4,400
Covers S16mm camera package + lights + sound equipment. All of this gear will give Arcadia the look of a dark fairytale.
Meals & Crafty
Costs $1,800
A pledge helps us feed our team nourishing meals!
Post-Production
Costs $3,450
To support our editor, composer, sound designer/mixer, colorist, and submit to festivals.
Accommodations & Travel
Costs $4,000
A pledge helps us ferry our brilliant collaborators from LA and NY and give them a cozy place to sleep.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Chloe Xtina (writer-director) and Vittoria Campaner (director of photography)
Chloe Xtina (Writer-Director)
Chloe Xtina (she/her) is a 2023 Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellow. She wrote and directed the short films GHOST OF YOU (2023 Sundance Ignite Selection, special screening 2024 Sundance Film Festival) and THE FIRST TASTE (2020 NoBudge Film of the Year). Chloe and her work have been featured in New York Magazine, Variety, Vulture, and TimeOut. Her play Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California had its Off-Broadway debut this summer in a Brooklyn bodega with a sold-out run and subsequent sold-out extension. She completed a BA in playwriting from UCLA in 2021 and is originally from Oakland, California. She is based in Brooklyn. You can learn more about Chloe and her work at chloextina.com
Vittoria Campaner (Director of Photography)
Vittoria is a Los Angeles-based Italian cinematographer who has worked internationally in Italy, France, Norway, China, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States. Her work has been showcased in 100+ international film festivals, museums, and theaters, including SXSW, MountainFilm Festival Telluride, and Palm Springs International ShortFest, and has been featured in The New Yorker, Deadline, IndieWire and more. In 2020 she was selected as a Cinematography Fellow for the ASC vision program and Film Independent’s Project Involve. Beyond cinematography, she writes and directs her own films. Her short “DYE RED” won the award for Best Experimental Narrative Short at the 51st Nashville Film Festival and has screened in 30+ international festivals. Most recently, she participated in the Playlab residency in Peru, during which she directed a film shot in the Amazon forest under the mentorship of renowned Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, which is currently in post-production. She is an SR3 S16mm camera owner.
Lucy Urbano (Cast: Juliet)
Lucy Urbano is a Los Angeles based actress and writer. She is a 2023 graduate of UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, where she studied acting and playwriting. Favorite stage roles include Hamlet (Hamlet), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Roberta), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Margaret.) She has studied acting at Oakland School for the Arts (where she met Chloe!), Fontainebleau School of Acting, Alexander Techworks (with Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad), and improv at Upright Citizens Brigade. She starred in Sweethart dir. Charlie Stuip, now streaming on NoBudge, and in the feature film Low Life (XYZ Films) which premiered at Raindance Film Festival in London and is now streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime, and AppleTV. She is honored to be working with Chloe again after playing Mae in Ghost of you, which premiered at Sundance through the Sundance Ignite Fellowship. Lucy grew up in Berkeley, California.
Logan Miller (Cast: Arthur)
Born in Colorado and now making a name for himself in Hollywood, Logan Miller started appearing in TV shows and movies in early 2008. Then, in 2009, his popularity gained a significant boost when he became a regular in “I’m in the Band,” a Disney’s original series set in the suburbs, as a teenager and also the lead guitarist for his favorite washed up rock band. Today, the length and breadth of his career includes starring in the Escape Room horror franchise, supporting roles in Love, Simon and Shithouse, a major role in Sundance’s Take Me to the River and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, as one of the leads in the drama You Can Choose Your Family, a role in acclaimed TV series “The Walking Dead” as well as voice-acting roles in animated features (such as “Ultimate Spider-Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy”) and video games (from “Marvel Heroes” to “Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes” and “Disney Infinity 3.0.”).
Alaska Reid (Cast: Summer)
Sophia Alaska Reid, better known by her stage name Alaska Reid, is a singer, songwriter, and musician from Park County, Montana, an enclave for writers, artists and ranchers of the American West. From age 14, she began gigging around LA. Eventually during her time in LA after becoming fatigued by the way she was seen as a young female singer-songwriter, Reid began to lean into her obsession with loud guitars and fuzz (thanks to her favorite band, Dinosaur Jr.). She formed a band, cold messaged John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile etc…) on Facebook and ended up releasing an album produced by him, entitled Crush.
Reid's first single from her debut EP, "Boys From Town", exists as a clear amalgamation of her upbringing from Montana to Los Angeles, tying together notes of country and Americana with lightened pop and poignant lyricism. This song arrived ahead of her debut EP, “Big Bunny”, released on December 11, 2020 via Terrible Records. Reid toured the US with indie rock outfit Del Water Gap until early December 2021. She spent 2022 working on her next release, and supporting Charli XCX during “Crash the Live Tour”, as well as Porches, Magdalena Bay and the Drums. In February 2023, she supported Maya Hawke on her European tour. In March 2023, Reid released "Back To This" as a single from her album Disenchanter, released on July 14, 2023 via Gorilla vs Bear's Luminelle Recordings label.
Alyssa Bonfigli (producer), Beatrice Brown (producer), and Charlie Stuip (producer/editor)
Blackdove Pictures (Production Company)
Blackdove focuses on challenging the cis-white male norms of entertainment by understanding how we, as a fem production company, occupy space and foster a creative environment focused on free expression.
Alyssa Grace Bonfigli (Producer)
Alyssa Grace Bonfigli is a UCLA graduate trained in performance theory, arts activism, and visual studies. She explores the meaning of the body and its location while seeking to create art that lives outside the confines of comfortability: revealing instead the beauty of disorientation and ambiguity in free movement.
Beatrice Brown (Producer)
Beatrice Brown is a recent grad from UCLA. Along with producing, she writes, directs, does production design, and performs in a number of the Blackdove Pictures productions. Her inspiration for filmmaking comes from a passion for literature. It is not necessarily the stories which influence her creatively, but rather the images which play in her mind when she reads a particularly vivid passage. She thanks those authors, Zadie Smith, Milan Kundera, and Jonathon Safran-Foer among many others who have helped shape, foster, and ignite her creative imagination.
Charlie Stuip (Producer/Editor)
Charlie Stuip is a writer and filmmaker. She studied screenwriting at UCLA, where she wrote and directed Sweethart (streaming on NoBudge) and Living Room Play, both starring Lucy Urbano. Charlie is currently producing films by Chloe Xtina and Roma Edwards while working on a book of poetry. charliestuip.com
MJ Upstairs (original score/cast: Lucia), Cat Pfingst (production and costume designer), and Tatum Anderson (sound designer/mixer)
MJ Upstairs (Original Score/Cast: Lucia)
MJ is a songwriter, musician, and sound designer in the thick of creating her second album. She likes eavesdropping, sound collage, Pauline Oliveros, and PJ Harvey. Keep up at mjupstairs.com
Cat Pfingst (Production and Costume Designer)
Before she moved to Brooklyn, Cat lived in Philadelphia where she graduated from Drexel University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Design. Since then, she has found energy within many overlapping creative sectors, and has worked on previous productions with Chloe Xtina which involved styling, scenic design, and prop making. Through the use of existing materials, Cat seeks to fabricate new realms. She is often inspired by the tension between day-to-day mundanity and the fantastical.
Tatum Anderson (Sound Designer/Mixer)
Tatum is an audiohead doubling as a freelance sound designer and a full-time production manager. She’s always thrilled to collaborate with Chloe Xtina, a fellow Bay Area native and UCLA grad. She loves the weird and the whimsical and can’t wait to tell this story through sound.
Ellie Zambarano (casting director) and Soryn Mouton (graphic designer)
Ellie Zambarano (Casting Director)
Ellie Zambarano is a casting director and producer originally from Austin, TX. Her experience is primarily in non-traditional casting, previously working for directors Chloé Zhao, Joshua James Richards, and Carlos López Estrada, and with Vicky Boone Casting out of ATX. Most recently, she was a producer on Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California, which had its off-Broadway run to a sold-out audience in a Brooklyn bodega. She currently works with Brooklyn-based production company Storm City Films and holds a BFA in musical theatre from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Soryn Mouton (Graphic Designer)
Soryn Mouton is an artist and designer born, raised, & based in Los Angeles, CA. She holds a BFA from the Cooper Union and is currently a graphic designer at Stept Studios as well as a freelance designer specializing in film titles, posters, and director’s treatments. She also dabbles in drawing, writing, and playing guitar.