Breaking Realms is a film about Octavia, a struggling young author whose first book hasn't done well, gaining ire from her readers and publisher, Mark. During a particularly late night of working on her next book, between stressing over what to write and trying to please her pushy boss, a book falls off her shelf. Getting up to investigate, she notices a strange ripple in her mirror. Reaching into the mirror, she is dragged in, and out steps "Other" Octavia. Octavia's doppelganger that has all of the self confidence and skill that Octavia herself longs for. The story follows what happens between Octavia and her doppelganger and the changes her sudden appearance will bring about.

Octavia

Octavia, 23, is a struggling author who fails to write anything with passion. She can usually be seen wearing comfy clothing, unless it’s for a book signing, in which she’ll try to dress up but doesn’t own many dressy outfits. She usually wears her hair in a bun or ponytail, often messy and disheveled looking, but always out of her face. Octavia started working with a publisher, Mark, who promised her he’d help launch her career into the novel business. The only problem, everything she writes, he hates. And so do the readers apparently. When we meet Octavia, she’s reading an entirely negative blog post about how horrible her last book is. She’s completely at a loss as to what to do now.

She grew up in the suburbs and has always had a fairly normal life. Despite that, she has struggled finding confidence in herself and her writing. She started writing when she was a little girl and fell in love with writing fantasy books. Fantasy is her favorite genre to read, so naturally when it comes to writing, she’ll always choose fantasy. The problem is that her writing isn’t that great, and a lot of that comes from her own insecurities. Throughout the film, we will see her consistently fight with herself over everything.

Other Octavia

Other Octavia, 23, is an author who has never gotten anything published. Her ambition never allows her to quit a project, so once she starts she must continue. All of the feedback she tends to get consistently comments on how random and backwards the stories seem. She’s quite terrible at organizing and thinking through thoughts. Before she even has a chance to think about what she writes, she’s already moved on to the next sentence. Unlike Octavia, she has been aware of parallel universes for a while, and she likes to think she knows Octavia pretty well. She has seen her time and time again struggle at that desk, hoping for an idea to just come to her. 

Her childhood was chaotic and quite unstable. Her parents split when she was young, resulting in a failed relationship with her father. Although her mother was never kind or endearing. Perhaps that is why Other Octavia never seems to have any empathy or try to provide comfort to Octavia. She never got it herself. But unlike her mother, she is empathetic and feels for Octavia. It’s why she came through the mirror in the first place, she could no longer watch Octavia struggle. 

We are living in a truly unprecedented time during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a team, we have spent much time discussing how we are going to handle COVID-19 safety and have thoroughly reviewed the local and industry safety protocols. We will be working with a dedicated covid coordinator to assist with this process. We are committed to keeping our cast and crew safe and healthy during this process. We realize the realities of the time we are all living through and believe that our film will help bring light to some of the issues we all face working in solitude at home. Something that we as a team have also had to work through.

We are a collection of past and present film production students at the College of DuPage. Over the course of the past several months we have gotten to know each other despite living through such unique circumstances and have developed a shared vision for our film. We are dedicated filmmakers who believe in using film to highlight the issues that many of us face. We look forward to you joining us on this unique journey, helping to bring to life a film that we are all truly passionate about. We hope that you are just as excited as we are to see it become a reality!