We're a team with a majority of our cast and crew in the Asian diaspora, making films for our younger selves. In telling a funny, joyful slice-of-life story about a young Filipina, we want our community to feel seen not just in the most dramatic moments, but in quiet and fleeting moments, too.

In mid-2000s Paradise Hills, the hairstyles were choppy, the jeans were skinny, the music was loud, and the feelings were big for a generation of Filipino American teenagers. When You Left Me On That Boulevard — a short, slice-of-life, coming-of-age stoner comedy — follows one of those teenagers: 15-year-old Ly Diaz. A shy, secret romantic, Ly would rather be chatting up her crush on AIM than face hours of boredom and awkward interactions at her family’s Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving Day, 2006, Ly smokes weed for the very first time on an errand run with her cousin. Upon their return to their family gathering, Ly becomes a zonked observer of her large, unruly family. She’s especially curious about her shrill Auntie Pinky. While Ly tries to navigate the prayer, the meal, the idling by, and the eventual karaoke party, Pinky is always around the corner, ready to pry into Ly’s life with invasive questions and unsolicited anecdotes.

 

15-year-old Lydia "Ly" Diaz (played by Gwenny Govea) in our proof of concept scene.

Auntie Pinky's house party moodboard.

When You Left Me On That Boulevard is based, in part, on the varied experiences of my friends, my cousins, my aunts, and myself. It takes an absurd but empathetic lens to my experiences growing up in mid-2000s Southeast San Diego. There, I was left to my own devices after school because my parents were working, I stuffed my bra with cotton swabs while getting ready in the morning, and I listened to the anguished screams of the Blood Brothers because I was anguished, too. I also consumed a steady diet of popular television shows and limited release films after my parents upgraded their cable box to include Sundance and IFC. I identified with the romanticism and dreaminess of the heroines in The O.C. and Marie Antoinette, but I still felt far away from them because I was shorter, browner, flatter chested, and much less wealthy.

 

Ly's character moodboard, comprised of photos and mementos from the formative years of Kayla and friends.

 

Boulevard is a story my younger self didn’t have ⁠— or even think she could have ⁠— but probably would’ve loved and craved. It’s a story about a girl who doesn’t want to be where she is, and it draws tension, humor, and heart from that simple premise. And it just so happens to live at the intersections of Filipino culture, girlhood, and working-class suburban life.

Boulevard is also my humble gift to a world that’s welcomed coming-of-age films like Ladybird, second-generation Asian American films like The Farewell, and stoner hangout movies like Smiley Face. Seeing these films thrive in the world has been validating, and it’s also moved me to add my own take that lovingly combines weed, food, family, AOL Instant Messenger, high school crushes, screamo, and karaoke. All these things add a surmountable weight to a teenage girl who just wants to get through the day.

With your support, I’ll join forces with some of the best people I know to tell a story I’ve been wanting to tell for a very long time. In telling a story as simple and human as this one, it’s my hope that audiences will receive it as a warm, familiar hug whether they’re Filipino or not. Your generous support will help me build a world, story, and character that my community ⁠— and many others ⁠— will be proud to see themselves in.

 

Tonal and compositional references from Frances Ha, Yi Yi, and The Farewell.

 

My films, Joan on the Phone (2016) and Learning Tagalog With Kayla (2021), have premiered at SXSW, the latter receiving the Audience Award in the Texas Shorts Competition. Learning Tagalog observed a fictional version of myself going through a personal crisis while trying to teach a language. It just premiered online on Short of the Week after being an official selection at festivals like Palm Springs International ShortFest, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, San Diego Filipino Film Festival, Indie Memphis Film Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Oak Cliff Film Festival, and Encounters Film Festival.

Watch Learning Tagalog With Kayla on Vimeo

My producing team — comprised of Samantha Skinner, Udoy Rahim, Alifya Ali, and David Oconer — has a combined 25 years of experience in filmmaking, having worked on projects such as the CAAM-funded Filipino American series, Kapwa, and coming-of-age dramedy and festival hit, Inbetween Girl.

 

Seed & Spark requires that we raise at least 80% of our goal for the project to be funded. We must reach this goal in 30 days or we don't receive any funds at all.

Your donation will help this project reach its full potential and help us take good care of our people along the way. We are committed to balancing our proven scrappiness and prioritizing the fair compensation, ethical work hours, rest, and overall wellness of our cast and crew, especially as we continue to weather the COVID-19 pandemic together. The $15,000 you are helping us raise will go towards:

• The hiring of local crew
• Casting locally in Paradise Hills
• Securing locations
• Era- and culturally authentic production design
• COVID health safety protocols and compliance

While our goal of $15,000 will help us greenlight production, reaching the following stretch goals would help us unlock additional ways to make this film the best version it can be:

• At $20,000, we'll upgrade our production design with the hiring of a food stylist and the increased flexibility to secure more obscure era-appropriate props and pieces.
• At $25,000, we'll have expand our capacity for local casting outreach and be able to invest further in rehearsals.
• At $30,000, we'll be able to license a mid-2000s screamo song and an old love ballad popular in the Philippines.

 

DEVELOPMENT, May 2019 — February 2021
I began writing '06-'07 — the feature film When You Left Me On That Boulevard is lifted from — in May 2018, and finished the first draft shortly before my 27th birthday in September that year. I perpetually revised it and developed Ly and her story up until the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. After the freeing experience of making my last film, Learning Tagalog With Kayla, I revisited Ly and her story through Boulevard. I completed the first draft of the script in early January 2021, at which point I started sharing it with close friends and longtime collaborators for feedback.

PRE-PRODUCTION, March 2021 ⁠— March 2022
Some of those friends and collaborators have turned into producers and key crew! We hit one of our first milestones this past summer with our proof of concept scene made for grantors, funders, and people interested in watching our film-to-be. We are currently raising funds, casting, and scouting locations with intermittent travel to San Diego from Austin and New York. When principal cast and locations are secured by the end of December, we will hire the rest of our crew and procure equipment and resources up until our shoot in late March 2022. In the couple of weeks leading up to the shoot, I plan to hold intensive rehearsals with the cast to nail the naturalistic performances and familial dynamics.

PRODUCTION, End of March 2022 — Early April 2022
We will shoot on location in Paradise Hills, Southeast San Diego, California for five days, combining our Austin- and New York-based talents with those of the community I know and love.

POST-PRODUCTION, April 2022 — July 2022
We’ve already assembled an incredible post-production team — many of whom I’ve worked with for years! I’ve even begun working with Will, our sound designer, to nail the multi-layered sound design. Matt — my co-editor on Joan on the Phone and the proof of concept scene — will be with me in the editing room, where we’ll spend half our time pacing around and the other half doing actual cutting until we picture lock at the end of June! By the end of July — after VFX, color, sound mix, and titles — we’ll be ready to submit the film by summer and fall festival deadlines.

DISTRIBUTION, August 2022 — November 2023
We’ll submit to festivals, hopeful for a world premiere at Sundance or SXSW. We plan to spread the festival net wide with regional, short film-focused, Asian diaspora-focused, and women-focused film festivals nationally and internationally. It’s also my hope to share this film through Austin and San Diego community screenings, as well as an online premiere.

 

When You Left Me On That Boulevard faces the usual risks of a film production today: What if we can’t find a key location, item, cast member, or crew member? What if the state of the pandemic makes production feel unsafe? What if Kayla’s cats pee all over her gear? We are offsetting those risks with production insurance, contingency plans (thank you, Udoy, for coming up with not one, not two, not three, but eight budget models per contingency plan!), and a production team with a combined 30 years of experience across passion projects, commercials, social content, educational content, etc.

Our production team on the set of our proof of concept scene shoot.

We’re also a team of longtime friends, so the trust runs deep. I met Alifya on a basketball court on a graduate thesis film set in 2013. Sam and I co-founded FemBeat and cultivated community through our filmmaking for seven years. I grew up in the same apartment complex as David, and we ate pizza and McDonald's and carne asada fries every day after school. I forget how and when exactly I met Udoy, but we became real tight when we discovered our mutual love of Final Fantasy VIII.

With respect to rewards fulfillment, we are being as fun, creative, and realistic as possible, while thanking our past crowdfunding-in-film-school-selves for some hard lessons learned. (Like, stop offering printed posters at tiers below $100!!!) A lot of our rewards will be experiential and digital, and a select few will be material and available at higher tiers. But everything will be made and delivered with love.

Finally, one of the biggest risks we face is coming up short of our funding goals across crowdfunding, grants, and personal fundraising. This could delay production, which is something I would be deeply disappointed and sad about, but not defeated by. I want to make this film so badly, so I will do what I can to see it through — whether that’s doing strategic rewrites to explore other ways to faithfully make this, or even just stopping, assessing, and recalibrating with a whole new strategy. I have so much faith in my team and myself to respond to these challenges with patience and thoughtfulness.

In the spirit of accountability and transparency, we’ll send updates about our progress to backers and followers on social media as we can.

 

This is another big way to support us! To reach our goal, we'll need to reach people beyond our networks. Help us spread the word: give us a boost on social media, email our campaign, call up your friends and family, whatever. We're grateful for anything you can do to help get the film out there.

Here are some examples. Feel free to copy and paste:

Help @nannerisms make the mid-2000s Filipina coming-of-age stoner comedy movie of her dreams! Join her on @seedandspark: bit.ly/boulevardfilm

Can't wait to watch WHEN YOU LEFT ME ON THAT BOULEVARD by writer/director @nannerisms ✨ Shooting Spring 2022 in Southeast San Diego! Support them on @seedandspark: bit.ly/boulevardfilm

 

Follow us on Seed&Spark. Once we hit 500, we’ll be able to access perks, products, services, and festival waivers offered by Seed&Spark!

Follow us on Instagram @boulevard.film and like us on Facebook at /boulevard.shortfilm. You’ll get project updates, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, and a fun playlist or two!

 

However you decide to respond to this call for support, just know that we’re thankful for your time and consideration. Even if you can’t contribute today, I hope you can stay in touch and follow this film’s journey! If you ever feel inclined, feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions or want to chat.