A Love Triangle Has Two Sides
Atlanta, Georgia | Film Feature
Romance, LGBTQ
On a trip to Tuscany, a woman’s relationship with her female partner falls apart, and an unexpected connection with a male traveler forces her to reconsider love, identity, and the future she thought she had chosen.
A Love Triangle Has Two Sides
Atlanta, Georgia | Film Feature
Romance, LGBTQ
1 Campaigns | Georgia, United States
77 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$12,305
Goal: $30,000 for production
On a trip to Tuscany, a woman’s relationship with her female partner falls apart, and an unexpected connection with a male traveler forces her to reconsider love, identity, and the future she thought she had chosen.
In Partnership With
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
What happens when the person who changes your life arrives after you thought your future was already decided?
A Love Triangle Has Two Sides follows Matilda, a woman who travels to Tuscany engaged to her longtime female partner, Kelsey, hoping the trip might help them reconnect before the next chapter of their lives begins.
Instead, the relationship falls apart.
Suddenly alone in a foreign country, Matilda is left trying to piece the trip, and herself, back together in real time. What she does not expect is Guy, an American traveler retracing the footsteps of his grandfather, a Buffalo Soldier who fought in Italy during World War II.
When Matilda impulsively joins Guy on his journey through the Serchio River Valley, an immediate and unexpected connection begins to grow between them. As they move through mountain villages, hidden histories, and unfamiliar emotional territory, Matilda finds herself confronting feelings that complicate what she thought was her place in the world.
But this is not a story where one love simply replaces another. Both relationships matter. Kelsey represents a real history, a shared life, and a future Matilda once chose with sincerity. Guy represents surprise, possibility, and a part of herself she may not have known how to name. The tension of the film lives between those truths, treating both sides of Matilda’s heart with care.
At its heart, this is a sweeping romance about longing, identity, reinvention, and the terrifying excitement of realizing there may still be parts of yourself left undiscovered.
Thirteen years ago, I launched a crowdfunding campaign for my thesis short film, Audrey Makes a Mixtape. Ana saw that campaign, submitted for the lead role, and became the center of that little film about music, longing, and teenage love.
That project changed both of our lives.
Now we finally are returning to the kind of film that brought us together in the first place: an intimate, emotionally open love story about the moments that change the course of a life.
Love Triangle (our cute shorthand title for this) is not autobiographical, but it comes from a place we know deeply: the belief that love can surprise you, unsettle you, and reveal parts of yourself you did not yet understand.
It also comes from a perspective I have been circling in my work for years. I have directed projects about bisexual dating, romantic longing, and the complicated ways people try to name what they feel. Some of this work has screened in queer spaces, including Outfest, and those experiences have made it clear that bisexual stories are still often misunderstood, flattened, or treated as unstable territory.
That matters because bisexual+ people make up a significant part of the LGBTQ+ community, but our stories are still too often reduced to confusion, betrayal, experimentation, or side plots. I want this film to be part of a different kind of visibility, one that is romantic, complicated, emotionally honest, and three-dimensional.
We want to tell a story that treats sexuality honestly without reducing it to sizzle or a problem to be solved. A story where uncertainty is not the same thing as dishonesty, and where love can be beautiful and destabilizing at the same time.
For us, this is a film about love as a force of discovery. The kind that can arrive at the wrong time, in the wrong place, but still feel impossible to ignore.
This is not the polished tourist version of Italy we’ve seen a hundred times before.
The story is set in Barga, a hilltop town tucked inside the mountainous Serchio River Valley of Tuscany. Think winding and steep stone streets, hidden valleys, local artists, family-run businesses, seasoned by layered wartime history and a dramatic landscape.
For the past several years, I have brought students to this region through a study abroad film program at the University of North Georgia. Through that work, we have built real friendships and creative relationships with people in the community. Because of those connections, we will be filming in real homes, businesses, museums, and gathering places throughout the area.
The film also follows Guy’s search for traces of his grandfather, a Buffalo Soldier who fought in Italy during World War II. That journey allows us to explore a history rarely seen in American films, alongside the artists and communities who continue to shape this part of Tuscany today.
Our goal is to make the audience feel like they have stepped into a living place: romantic, imperfect, textured, spontaneous, and deeply human.
This film is part of the inaugural UNG Micro-Budget Narrative Feature Lab, a new initiative supporting five independent feature films with budgets under $100,000.
For us, micro-budget filmmaking is not about making something smaller. It is about making something more personal, more agile, and more rooted in real relationships.
We are building this film with a small team of trusted collaborators, former students, local partners, and artists in Georgia and Italy. The production will blend scripted narrative filmmaking with documentary-inspired realism, combining professional actors, real locations, local non-actors... everyday life in Barga through the eyes of our fictional characters.
That approach allows us to make a film that feels intimate and cinematic without sanding down what makes the story specific. We will shoot entirely on-location in real settings, capturing the energy of each place as it actually lives and breathes.
Our goal is to pay our cast and crew ethically, protect the intimacy of the production, and create a film that could only exist through collaboration.
Our full micro-budget feature budget is approximately $86,000.
For this Seed&Spark campaign, we are raising $30,000 as our first major public push to activate production.
That means your pledge helps fund the people and practical infrastructure needed to make the Tuscany shoot possible:
- Cast & Crew Support: $10,000
- Travel to Tuscany: $5,000
- Housing During Production: $5,000
- Food & Set Support: $3,000
- Locations & Local Production Needs: $3,000
- Wardrobe, Art & Props: $2,000
- Data, Drives & Production Essentials: $2,000
Our film has fiscal sponsorship through Stowe Story Labs, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting independent storytellers. Contributions are routed through Stowe and are tax-deductible. Your support helps activate production while backing a fiscally sponsored independent film project.
This campaign is also about momentum. Before we move into the next stage of support through fiscal sponsorship, direct donors, and grants, we need to show that there is a real audience for this story and this specific production.
Every pledge helps prove that this film has a community behind it.
If you want to help this film become real, there are three things you can do right now.
- Pledge. Any amount helps us build momentum, and early support is especially important in the first days of the campaign.
- Follow the campaign. You’ll receive updates as we move through development, production in Tuscany, post-production, and the long road of bringing the film to audiences.
- Share the campaign with someone who might connect with this story: independent film lovers, romance fans, queer audiences, travelers, artists, former students, friends, family, and anyone who believes personal films like this should exist.
Come with us on this journey! ✈️🍝🥰
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast & Crew Support
Costs $10,000
Helps us pay the actors and crew bringing this story to life with care, skill, and professionalism.
Travel to Tuscany
Costs $5,000
Gets our core team to Barga and the Serchio River Valley, where the film is set and will be made.
Housing During Production
Costs $5,000
Gives our cast and crew a stable home base during the shoot so we can work safely and sustainably.
Food & Set Support
Costs $3,000
Keeps everyone fed, focused, and cared for through long production days in Italy.
Locations & Local Production Needs
Costs $3,000
Helps us film in real homes, businesses, museums, villages, and community spaces throughout Barga.
Wardrobe, Art & Props
Costs $2,000
Builds the lived-in visual world of the film through clothing, objects, set dressing, and character details.
Data, Drives & Production Essentials
Costs $2,000
Covers the practical tools we need to protect footage and keep production moving every day.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
The team behind A Love Triangle Has Two Sides is made up of independent filmmakers, artists, and collaborators brought together through years of creative partnership, micro-budget filmmaking, and international production experience. Led by writer/director James Mackenzie — an award-winning filmmaker, professor at the University of North Georgia, and founder of a study abroad film program in Tuscany — the project combines professional filmmakers with emerging artists and former students building their careers in narrative cinema.
James Mackenzie (Writer/Director/Producer)
A graduate of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film & Television, his MFA thesis was shortlisted for the BAFTA Student Film Awards. As a fellow of the Film Independent Incubator Lab, he directed the award-winning feature American Zealot. His work has been presented at the Tribeca N.O.W. Creators Market and premiered at Outfest and the Atlanta Film Festival, among other international and Academy Award-qualifying festivals. He is an Associate Professor at the University of North Georgia and is producing his next feature, A Love Triangle Has Two Sides, as part of the inaugural UNG Micro-Budget Narrative Feature Lab.
Ana Mackenzie (Producer, Casting Director)
Ana Mackenzie is a producer, actor, and casting director with nearly two decades of experience in film and television. She is best known for her recurring role as Marion Clark on FOX’s The Resident and for playing Dylan on Freeform’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Beginning her career as an actor, she developed a strong instinct for performance and character that continues to shape her work in casting and producing. Her independent work has screened at international festivals, and she is drawn to emotionally honest, character-driven stories that take creative risks. She currently works with the Peabody Awards, championing impactful storytelling across media.
Joey Kopanski (Cinematographer)
Joey Kopanski’s work is grounded in authenticity, blending polished visual craft with an unvarnished, deeply human approach to storytelling. His passion for image-making began at a young age after falling in love with his family’s home videos, sparking an ongoing obsession with preserving fleeting moments and the quiet beauty of everyday life. Based in Atlanta, Joey’s documentary-influenced work has earned recognition at the Atlanta Film Festival and the Tribeca N.O.W. Creators Market. His work has taken him across the globe, capturing stories in places including Lithuania, France, and Newfoundland. Whether working in narrative or documentary spaces, Joey is drawn to emotionally honest images that feel lived-in and immediate.
Alastair Cook (Editor)
Alastair Cook is an Atlanta-based editor with more than a decade of experience across short films, web series, and digital media. Driven by a passion for storytelling, his work focuses on shaping emotional, character-driven narratives through rhythm, structure, and performance. In addition to his independent film work, he serves as a full-time editor at a marketing agency, where he continues to refine his craft across a wide range of visual media. Whether working in narrative or commercial spaces, Alastair is drawn to projects that balance emotional honesty with strong cinematic language.
Luca Longobardi (Composer)
Italian composer and pianist Luca Longobardi represents the generation of classically trained musicians who incorporate the language of contemporary electronic music into their pieces, which are furthermore strongly connected to the multimedia arts. His works reveal a strong interaction between classical and contemporary music. He has composed music for ballets and films and accompanied installations and experimental art productions (Atelier des Lumières - Paris, Carrières de Lumières - Baux-de-Provence, Kunstkraftwerk - Leipzig). In the last 15 years, he has been an author, composer, and musical director of successful immersive shows, including the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit, which have brought immersive art into the global spotlight.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
What happens when the person who changes your life arrives after you thought your future was already decided?
A Love Triangle Has Two Sides follows Matilda, a woman who travels to Tuscany engaged to her longtime female partner, Kelsey, hoping the trip might help them reconnect before the next chapter of their lives begins.
Instead, the relationship falls apart.
Suddenly alone in a foreign country, Matilda is left trying to piece the trip, and herself, back together in real time. What she does not expect is Guy, an American traveler retracing the footsteps of his grandfather, a Buffalo Soldier who fought in Italy during World War II.
When Matilda impulsively joins Guy on his journey through the Serchio River Valley, an immediate and unexpected connection begins to grow between them. As they move through mountain villages, hidden histories, and unfamiliar emotional territory, Matilda finds herself confronting feelings that complicate what she thought was her place in the world.
But this is not a story where one love simply replaces another. Both relationships matter. Kelsey represents a real history, a shared life, and a future Matilda once chose with sincerity. Guy represents surprise, possibility, and a part of herself she may not have known how to name. The tension of the film lives between those truths, treating both sides of Matilda’s heart with care.
At its heart, this is a sweeping romance about longing, identity, reinvention, and the terrifying excitement of realizing there may still be parts of yourself left undiscovered.
Thirteen years ago, I launched a crowdfunding campaign for my thesis short film, Audrey Makes a Mixtape. Ana saw that campaign, submitted for the lead role, and became the center of that little film about music, longing, and teenage love.
That project changed both of our lives.
Now we finally are returning to the kind of film that brought us together in the first place: an intimate, emotionally open love story about the moments that change the course of a life.
Love Triangle (our cute shorthand title for this) is not autobiographical, but it comes from a place we know deeply: the belief that love can surprise you, unsettle you, and reveal parts of yourself you did not yet understand.
It also comes from a perspective I have been circling in my work for years. I have directed projects about bisexual dating, romantic longing, and the complicated ways people try to name what they feel. Some of this work has screened in queer spaces, including Outfest, and those experiences have made it clear that bisexual stories are still often misunderstood, flattened, or treated as unstable territory.
That matters because bisexual+ people make up a significant part of the LGBTQ+ community, but our stories are still too often reduced to confusion, betrayal, experimentation, or side plots. I want this film to be part of a different kind of visibility, one that is romantic, complicated, emotionally honest, and three-dimensional.
We want to tell a story that treats sexuality honestly without reducing it to sizzle or a problem to be solved. A story where uncertainty is not the same thing as dishonesty, and where love can be beautiful and destabilizing at the same time.
For us, this is a film about love as a force of discovery. The kind that can arrive at the wrong time, in the wrong place, but still feel impossible to ignore.
This is not the polished tourist version of Italy we’ve seen a hundred times before.
The story is set in Barga, a hilltop town tucked inside the mountainous Serchio River Valley of Tuscany. Think winding and steep stone streets, hidden valleys, local artists, family-run businesses, seasoned by layered wartime history and a dramatic landscape.
For the past several years, I have brought students to this region through a study abroad film program at the University of North Georgia. Through that work, we have built real friendships and creative relationships with people in the community. Because of those connections, we will be filming in real homes, businesses, museums, and gathering places throughout the area.
The film also follows Guy’s search for traces of his grandfather, a Buffalo Soldier who fought in Italy during World War II. That journey allows us to explore a history rarely seen in American films, alongside the artists and communities who continue to shape this part of Tuscany today.
Our goal is to make the audience feel like they have stepped into a living place: romantic, imperfect, textured, spontaneous, and deeply human.
This film is part of the inaugural UNG Micro-Budget Narrative Feature Lab, a new initiative supporting five independent feature films with budgets under $100,000.
For us, micro-budget filmmaking is not about making something smaller. It is about making something more personal, more agile, and more rooted in real relationships.
We are building this film with a small team of trusted collaborators, former students, local partners, and artists in Georgia and Italy. The production will blend scripted narrative filmmaking with documentary-inspired realism, combining professional actors, real locations, local non-actors... everyday life in Barga through the eyes of our fictional characters.
That approach allows us to make a film that feels intimate and cinematic without sanding down what makes the story specific. We will shoot entirely on-location in real settings, capturing the energy of each place as it actually lives and breathes.
Our goal is to pay our cast and crew ethically, protect the intimacy of the production, and create a film that could only exist through collaboration.
Our full micro-budget feature budget is approximately $86,000.
For this Seed&Spark campaign, we are raising $30,000 as our first major public push to activate production.
That means your pledge helps fund the people and practical infrastructure needed to make the Tuscany shoot possible:
- Cast & Crew Support: $10,000
- Travel to Tuscany: $5,000
- Housing During Production: $5,000
- Food & Set Support: $3,000
- Locations & Local Production Needs: $3,000
- Wardrobe, Art & Props: $2,000
- Data, Drives & Production Essentials: $2,000
Our film has fiscal sponsorship through Stowe Story Labs, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting independent storytellers. Contributions are routed through Stowe and are tax-deductible. Your support helps activate production while backing a fiscally sponsored independent film project.
This campaign is also about momentum. Before we move into the next stage of support through fiscal sponsorship, direct donors, and grants, we need to show that there is a real audience for this story and this specific production.
Every pledge helps prove that this film has a community behind it.
If you want to help this film become real, there are three things you can do right now.
- Pledge. Any amount helps us build momentum, and early support is especially important in the first days of the campaign.
- Follow the campaign. You’ll receive updates as we move through development, production in Tuscany, post-production, and the long road of bringing the film to audiences.
- Share the campaign with someone who might connect with this story: independent film lovers, romance fans, queer audiences, travelers, artists, former students, friends, family, and anyone who believes personal films like this should exist.
Come with us on this journey! ✈️🍝🥰
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Cast & Crew Support
Costs $10,000
Helps us pay the actors and crew bringing this story to life with care, skill, and professionalism.
Travel to Tuscany
Costs $5,000
Gets our core team to Barga and the Serchio River Valley, where the film is set and will be made.
Housing During Production
Costs $5,000
Gives our cast and crew a stable home base during the shoot so we can work safely and sustainably.
Food & Set Support
Costs $3,000
Keeps everyone fed, focused, and cared for through long production days in Italy.
Locations & Local Production Needs
Costs $3,000
Helps us film in real homes, businesses, museums, villages, and community spaces throughout Barga.
Wardrobe, Art & Props
Costs $2,000
Builds the lived-in visual world of the film through clothing, objects, set dressing, and character details.
Data, Drives & Production Essentials
Costs $2,000
Covers the practical tools we need to protect footage and keep production moving every day.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
The team behind A Love Triangle Has Two Sides is made up of independent filmmakers, artists, and collaborators brought together through years of creative partnership, micro-budget filmmaking, and international production experience. Led by writer/director James Mackenzie — an award-winning filmmaker, professor at the University of North Georgia, and founder of a study abroad film program in Tuscany — the project combines professional filmmakers with emerging artists and former students building their careers in narrative cinema.
James Mackenzie (Writer/Director/Producer)
A graduate of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film & Television, his MFA thesis was shortlisted for the BAFTA Student Film Awards. As a fellow of the Film Independent Incubator Lab, he directed the award-winning feature American Zealot. His work has been presented at the Tribeca N.O.W. Creators Market and premiered at Outfest and the Atlanta Film Festival, among other international and Academy Award-qualifying festivals. He is an Associate Professor at the University of North Georgia and is producing his next feature, A Love Triangle Has Two Sides, as part of the inaugural UNG Micro-Budget Narrative Feature Lab.
Ana Mackenzie (Producer, Casting Director)
Ana Mackenzie is a producer, actor, and casting director with nearly two decades of experience in film and television. She is best known for her recurring role as Marion Clark on FOX’s The Resident and for playing Dylan on Freeform’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Beginning her career as an actor, she developed a strong instinct for performance and character that continues to shape her work in casting and producing. Her independent work has screened at international festivals, and she is drawn to emotionally honest, character-driven stories that take creative risks. She currently works with the Peabody Awards, championing impactful storytelling across media.
Joey Kopanski (Cinematographer)
Joey Kopanski’s work is grounded in authenticity, blending polished visual craft with an unvarnished, deeply human approach to storytelling. His passion for image-making began at a young age after falling in love with his family’s home videos, sparking an ongoing obsession with preserving fleeting moments and the quiet beauty of everyday life. Based in Atlanta, Joey’s documentary-influenced work has earned recognition at the Atlanta Film Festival and the Tribeca N.O.W. Creators Market. His work has taken him across the globe, capturing stories in places including Lithuania, France, and Newfoundland. Whether working in narrative or documentary spaces, Joey is drawn to emotionally honest images that feel lived-in and immediate.
Alastair Cook (Editor)
Alastair Cook is an Atlanta-based editor with more than a decade of experience across short films, web series, and digital media. Driven by a passion for storytelling, his work focuses on shaping emotional, character-driven narratives through rhythm, structure, and performance. In addition to his independent film work, he serves as a full-time editor at a marketing agency, where he continues to refine his craft across a wide range of visual media. Whether working in narrative or commercial spaces, Alastair is drawn to projects that balance emotional honesty with strong cinematic language.
Luca Longobardi (Composer)
Italian composer and pianist Luca Longobardi represents the generation of classically trained musicians who incorporate the language of contemporary electronic music into their pieces, which are furthermore strongly connected to the multimedia arts. His works reveal a strong interaction between classical and contemporary music. He has composed music for ballets and films and accompanied installations and experimental art productions (Atelier des Lumières - Paris, Carrières de Lumières - Baux-de-Provence, Kunstkraftwerk - Leipzig). In the last 15 years, he has been an author, composer, and musical director of successful immersive shows, including the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit, which have brought immersive art into the global spotlight.