"Goodbye stranger, it's been nice" ~ Supertramp

In August 1979 Marley Forrester takes the trip of a lifetime. After experiencing the world's most horrific breakup in the year of 2024, Marley wants, no, needs an escape from her current reality. Lucky for her she comes from a family of time travelers who can make the happen. When her older siblings catch her down in the dumps they cook up a scheme to have a weekend of fun in 1979 at their family's abandoned lake house, just so Marley has literal time and space away from her ex-girlfriend.

Everything's going to plan until three strangers arrive and make themselves at home in the lake house. Turns out this house wasn't as abandoned as they thought and they're all now forced to spend the weekend together. Normally this would be fine but one member of the group, Laurie Harris, looks identical to Marley's ex-girlfriend. Kind of defeats the purpose of the trip...right?

Over the course of one night secrets are revealed and boundaries are pushed as Marley and Laurie get closer to one another despite literally everyone around them pulling them apart. What happens when one girl running away from her feelings causes decades of chaos?

CHARACTERS:

Defining Song: "Have You Seen Her" by The Chi-Lites

Marley Forrester is a lovelorn college student from 2024 who's just looking for a change of pace. Or at least that's what she thinks. One thing to know about Marley is when she falls in love, she falls hard. So it takes a lot to get her back up. After being broken up with by her girlfriend, Caroline, Marley is forced into "sibling bonding time" by her sister Camille and her brother Phillip. Little does she know that this quick trip to 1979 will change her life forever.

Defining Song: "American Girl" by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

Laurie wants so much more from life than what was around her. Growing up everything was...so planned out. She was going to go to college with her best friends Eleanor and Thomas, she was going to date Thomas for a few years, and then inevitably they were going to get married have a dog and pop out 2 kids. The prospect of this terrified the hell out of Laurie but it was too late, she was already in the middle of the cycle. After dating Thomas for 5 years, she broke up with him in hopes of finding…something else. Or rather someone else. Six months later she finds out exactly who this person is.

Defining Song: "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" by The Ramones

Meet the primary antagonist of the film, Thomas Walters. To his core…Thomas is stubborn. He knows this, his sister Eleanor knows this, even his girlfriend, sorry ex-girlfriend, knows this. If it's not his way, he'll make it his way. And almost everyone loves him for this. When Laurie broke up with him he mentally vowed to get her back. Outwardly though he acts as though nothing has happened and that Laurie is still with him. That is until reality hits and he has to see Laurie be with someone else...

"You don't know what you've got til it's gone" ~ Joni Mitchell

The core message of this film is that you can't deal your problems by running from them. Each of the leads has a part of reality that they are trying to avoid or change and instead of dealing with that problem head on, they just avoid it entirely. In pursuit of this avoidance they all lose sight of what's right in front of them, only when they're able to live in the moment is when they're truly free but for some that freedom comes too late.

The monetary goal for this production is $2000. If we were to reach our goal, $1400 would go towards the cost of renting a lake house for a 1-day shoot, $200 would go towards costuming, while the remaining $400 would go towards gas and catering for the day shoot. This is a no pay production but any additional funds would go towards extending our shoot date and pays the cast and crew.

Stretch Goals:

If we make $3000 we would be able to add an additional shooting date along with providing small compensation for the cast & crew.

If we make $4000 we would be able to provide the cast with a larger amount for compensation.

If we make $5000 we would be able to pay for a festival run for Goodbye Stranger without additional fundraising.

As of right now we're currently in the pre-production and casting phase of the project! This crowdfunding effort will allow us to begin production on more solid ground while also ensuring us the ability to get a location for shooting! We're eyeing a production date in late summer 2025. Once filming is complete my team and I will edit and distribute the film ourselves after hopefully taking it to festivals.

For those who pledge to receive the digital link, those will be sent out upon the completion of the film and distributed via email!

Now, how can you help the team bring this film to life? Well there's more ways than just pledging with us! For instance any sort of social media shoutout to spread our campaign will go futher in helping us spread our message and bring attention to the film! Please follow us on our instagram @goodbye_strangerfilm to receive more updates directly from the production team!