Margin of Innocence
New York City, New York | Film Short
Drama, Family
An 11-year-old must choose between fitting in and standing up for her sister with autism after her friend excludes her from her Bat Mitzvah.
Margin of Innocence
New York City, New York | Film Short
Drama, Family
1 Campaigns | New York, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $15,000 for pre-production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
97 supporters | followers
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An 11-year-old must choose between fitting in and standing up for her sister with autism after her friend excludes her from her Bat Mitzvah.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Logline
When an 11-year-old learns her best friend doesn’t want her sister with autism at her Bat Mitzvah, she must choose between fitting in and doing what’s right.
Synopsis
Margin of Innocence follows Ellie, an 11-year-old caught between childhood and the pressure to fit in with her best friend, Dalia, on the morning of her Bat Mitzvah celebrations. Ellie adores her younger sister Addie, who has autism, and the imaginative world they share. But when Dalia admits she doesn’t want Addie involved, Ellie faces a painful choice. Throughout the day, Ellie tries to mimic Dalia’s confidence, only to watch Addie get left behind, teased, and ultimately used as the punchline of a joke. In a moment of clarity and courage, Ellie stands up for Addie, choosing love over approval. The film captures the tender, complicated shift from innocence to understanding and explores sisterhood, belonging, and the first time a child realizes the world doesn’t see her sister the way she does.
I remember this moment very clearly. It was a normal Saturday morning at the synagogue I attended every weekend. I loved it there–the kosher cookies, my friends, the comfort of routine. Synagogue was a second home. I was about nine years old, standing in the bathroom with a friend I’d known forever when she suddenly asked me, “What’s wrong with your sister?” I was caught off guard. She could see it too? She said it was obvious. That was the first time I truly realized the world saw my sister differently than I did. Up until then, she was just my sister, but in that instant, she became “my sister with autism.” It was a quiet, private shattering. Growing up, I was met with questions like that all the time, from peers, from adults, sometimes well-meaning, sometimes cruel. And as much as I loved my sister, I couldn’t shake the shame I felt, both for being ashamed and for wishing things were different. All I wanted was to fit in, to have my crush like me back, to not stand out. Now, in 2025, I see that moment with clarity. My peers weren’t malicious–they were kids. They didn’t know better. But that moment stayed with me, and as I searched for a story to tell for my advanced film, I kept coming back to it. This short film is my attempt to condense that feeling into a short film–to capture the innocence, the confusion, the tenderness, and the quiet devastation of that first realization. It is a love letter to my sister, to my younger self, and to anyone who has ever felt torn between the people they love and the world they long to be part of.”
– Lily Daroff
The film’s look is tender and intimate, using soft, pale tones that contrast sharply with the heavier emotional realities beneath the surface. Handheld, close-up camerawork keeps us tightly with Ellie, while sterile, wider shots appear when her world becomes confusing or unsafe. The overall style is cohesive yet slightly heightened, gentle in palette, but emotionally charged in what it reveals.
The film is currently in pre-production. Our production will take place mid-March.
After we complete post-production (sound editing, composing original score, coloring the film, etc.) we will begin submitting Margin of Innocence to film festivals across the country and international festivals around the world!
Budget
Our total production budget is projected to land between $17,000-$18,000, and we are fundraising $10,000 of that total through this campaign.
A significant portion of our budget is dedicated to authentic casting and hiring an Accessibility Coordinator to ensure our set is inclusive, safe, and supportive for everyone involved. The remaining funds will go toward fairly compensating our cast, covering travel to and from our filming location, properly caring for our hardworking crew, and securing essential equipment rentals to bring this film to life with the quality it deserves.
Accessibility and inclusion are major priorities for our production, and a meaningful portion of our Seed & Spark funds will go directly toward ensuring these values are upheld on and off set. We are hiring a dedicated Junior Access Coordinator to support the needs of our cast and crew, helping create a working environment that is welcoming, safe, and truly accessible for all.
You can also learn more about the rest of our incredible crew members helping make this project possible in the next tab under CREW!
In a time when conversations around inclusion and neurodiversity are finally taking center stage, Margin of Innocence captures the earliest moment those ideas take root, when a child first realizes the world doesn’t see her sister the same way she does. This story of sibling love and belonging offers a rare lens into how awareness and empathy are formed, long before adulthood hardens them into language or politics.While some films and shows have explored neurodiversity, few center the sibling experience and even fewer portray autism through the eyes of children themselves. Margin of Innocence fills that gap with honesty and tenderness, showing what inclusion looks like before it’s a movement, when it’s just love. Told through Ellie’s perspective, the film captures the quiet moment when innocence gives way to understanding–and how one small, painful realization becomes a lifelong lesson in love, courage, and seeing someone for who they truly are.
FOLLOW US: Follow our Seed & Spark campaign and keep an eye out for updates! We’re also on Instagram @marginofinnocence
CONTRIBUTE AND PLEDGE: You can help us by making a pledge, or simply sharing with your friends! We must raise 80% of our crowdfunding goal to keep any funds raised. Your support means the entire world, without you, this film wouldn’t be possible.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Crew Support
Costs $3,000
Our crew is the heart of this film. This funding allows us to fairly compensate and support the artists who make this project possible.
Meals & Crafty
Costs $1,600
Film sets run on good food. Your support helps us nourish our hardworking cast and crew across four full shoot days.
Equipment Rental
Costs $2,000
To truly build Ellie and Addie's world, we need the right tools. This contribution helps us make the most impactful film we can.
Post-Production
Costs $1,000
This helps cover editing, coloring, and composing. Your support ensures the story lives far beyond the set.
Locations
Costs $1,000
Locations shape the entire tone of the film. This funding helps us secure safe, accessible, and visually compelling spaces.
Authentic Casting
Costs $700
Supporting inclusive, disability-affirming casting so performers with lived experience can bring this story to life with truth and care.
Production Design & Costumes
Costs $700
Helps us build Ellie and Addie’s world through thoughtful design and costumes that make every moment feel real and lived-in.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We are a team of NYU students and alumni who are passionate about telling diverse and cinematic stories!
Lily Daroff - Writer/Director
Lily Daroff (She/her/hers) is a senior at NYU Tisch, majoring in Film & Television with a minor in Animal Studies. She has extensive experience in development, editing, casting, and production, with internships at Gulfstream Pictures, Fair Harbor Productions, and The Js. In these roles, she provided script covge, research, and creative feedback to support writers, directors, and producers.
Beyond development, Lily has cast more than ten NYU short films, working closely with directors and producers to shape ensembles and elevate performance authenticity. Her own work has screened at over 80 film festivals worldwide since 2017, including the prestigious Cleveland International Film Festival, which selected her NYU-produced documentary Cleveland. Most recently, her junior-year short Just A Girl won the Best Short Film — Festival Award at the 2025 New York Short Film Festival.
Rose Sutton - Executive Producer
Rose Sutton, of full Syrian-Jewish descent, is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker specializing in directing, editing, and photography, with a continued passion for producing. A recent graduate of NYU Tisch’s Film & Television program as a Tisch Scholarship recipient, her work explores emotional complexity, and the interplay between lived experience—past, present, and imagined—and artistic expression.
Born in Los Angeles and raised across shifting homes after her parents' divorce, Rose developed a deep appreciation for storytelling that embraces nuance, abstraction, and collaboration. Her style leans into bold visual experimentation, often merging music, movement, and layered imagery to evoke feelings that resist traditional narrative. At NYU, she created Color My Grey Street and her senior thesis, The Music Coma, now in post-production and being developed into a feature. Festival selections include First Run Film Fest, and Big Apple Film Fest. She is a grant awardee within the Clive Davis Institute and the Tisch Undergraduate Research Fund, among others.
Rose Knopper - Director of Photography
Rose Knopper is a Director of Photography and animator based in NYC. With a background in painting, she brings her visual sensibilities to narrative and commercial film work. She holds a BFA in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Her work has been featured at the Beverly Hills Film Festival (The Blue Inside), NewFest (Rope), NoBudge (It Will Happen to Us Again), and the New York Indie Shorts Awards (Fireflies), among others. She is a 2025 recipient of the Russell Carmine Award for Cinematography and a co-founder of production company Junk Flower Films with her creative partner Keya Saxena.
Skylar Kim - Producer
Skylar Kim is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, and writer working between Copenhagen, New York, and Seoul. Her work bridges the U.S. and South Korea, exploring identity, migration, and memory.
Her most recent project, Dearborn, a 30-minute TV pilot she directed, earned the Audience Award and a Jury Nomination at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY). The film was one of only two projects at NYU to receive $10,000 in production funding and was fiscally sponsored by the Arab Film and Media Institute. Her films have screened at SeriesFest, Big Apple Film Festival, and other international festivals, while her screenplays have been recognized as finalists at the Los Angeles Asian Film Awards, Brown University’s Ivy Film Festival, and Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. As a producer, her projects have received the HEAR US Award and the NYU Tisch Student Producers Grant.
Skylar studied Film & Television at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she minored in American Literature and Entertainment Business. She has held roles across development and programming – from Protozoa Pictures to Apple TV+’s Pachinko, as well as the Oscar-qualifying Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. She currently works as a Script Reader and Consultant for Wildsound Film Festival.
Harry Diamond - Co-Producer
Harry is a Jewish filmmaker from Los Angeles passionate about directing and screenwriting. A recent graduate of NYU Tisch with a BFA in Film & Television, he has worked as crew on several student narrative short films as well as writing and directing an experimental horror short last fall. He also has professional experience working for companies like DTLA Film Festival, American High Productions, and Protozoa Pictures.
Danielle Pretsfelder Demchick - Casting Director
Danielle has been an active member of the New York casting community since 2004. Nickelodeon was her casting home for over 14 years, where she tapped into her love of developing young talent. From live action and animation, scripted and unscripted, long form and short form, and even podcasts, she has and loves to cast it all!
The co-VP of Advocacy for the Casting Society of America, her work elevating underrepresented communities has been barrier breaking and continues to motivate her to manifest change in how the real world is seen on screen.
A leader in the organization's Equity in Entertainment committee, she serves on the board of both the Casting Society of America and Casting Society Cares, where her focus is on Training & Education. She prides herself on being an ally to artists and aspiring talent of all abilities.
She serves as a faculty advisor for Disability Belongs f.k.a Respectability and she is on the Actor's Fund's Looking Ahead Advisory Board. In addition to her work in casting, she is currently pursuing a master's degree in Disabilities Studies at the City University of New York. She is also a trained childhood bereavement group facilitator and serves as a member of the Caring Committee for the Wechsler Center for Modern Aging.
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Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Logline
When an 11-year-old learns her best friend doesn’t want her sister with autism at her Bat Mitzvah, she must choose between fitting in and doing what’s right.
Synopsis
Margin of Innocence follows Ellie, an 11-year-old caught between childhood and the pressure to fit in with her best friend, Dalia, on the morning of her Bat Mitzvah celebrations. Ellie adores her younger sister Addie, who has autism, and the imaginative world they share. But when Dalia admits she doesn’t want Addie involved, Ellie faces a painful choice. Throughout the day, Ellie tries to mimic Dalia’s confidence, only to watch Addie get left behind, teased, and ultimately used as the punchline of a joke. In a moment of clarity and courage, Ellie stands up for Addie, choosing love over approval. The film captures the tender, complicated shift from innocence to understanding and explores sisterhood, belonging, and the first time a child realizes the world doesn’t see her sister the way she does.
I remember this moment very clearly. It was a normal Saturday morning at the synagogue I attended every weekend. I loved it there–the kosher cookies, my friends, the comfort of routine. Synagogue was a second home. I was about nine years old, standing in the bathroom with a friend I’d known forever when she suddenly asked me, “What’s wrong with your sister?” I was caught off guard. She could see it too? She said it was obvious. That was the first time I truly realized the world saw my sister differently than I did. Up until then, she was just my sister, but in that instant, she became “my sister with autism.” It was a quiet, private shattering. Growing up, I was met with questions like that all the time, from peers, from adults, sometimes well-meaning, sometimes cruel. And as much as I loved my sister, I couldn’t shake the shame I felt, both for being ashamed and for wishing things were different. All I wanted was to fit in, to have my crush like me back, to not stand out. Now, in 2025, I see that moment with clarity. My peers weren’t malicious–they were kids. They didn’t know better. But that moment stayed with me, and as I searched for a story to tell for my advanced film, I kept coming back to it. This short film is my attempt to condense that feeling into a short film–to capture the innocence, the confusion, the tenderness, and the quiet devastation of that first realization. It is a love letter to my sister, to my younger self, and to anyone who has ever felt torn between the people they love and the world they long to be part of.”
– Lily Daroff
The film’s look is tender and intimate, using soft, pale tones that contrast sharply with the heavier emotional realities beneath the surface. Handheld, close-up camerawork keeps us tightly with Ellie, while sterile, wider shots appear when her world becomes confusing or unsafe. The overall style is cohesive yet slightly heightened, gentle in palette, but emotionally charged in what it reveals.
The film is currently in pre-production. Our production will take place mid-March.
After we complete post-production (sound editing, composing original score, coloring the film, etc.) we will begin submitting Margin of Innocence to film festivals across the country and international festivals around the world!
Budget
Our total production budget is projected to land between $17,000-$18,000, and we are fundraising $10,000 of that total through this campaign.
A significant portion of our budget is dedicated to authentic casting and hiring an Accessibility Coordinator to ensure our set is inclusive, safe, and supportive for everyone involved. The remaining funds will go toward fairly compensating our cast, covering travel to and from our filming location, properly caring for our hardworking crew, and securing essential equipment rentals to bring this film to life with the quality it deserves.
Accessibility and inclusion are major priorities for our production, and a meaningful portion of our Seed & Spark funds will go directly toward ensuring these values are upheld on and off set. We are hiring a dedicated Junior Access Coordinator to support the needs of our cast and crew, helping create a working environment that is welcoming, safe, and truly accessible for all.
You can also learn more about the rest of our incredible crew members helping make this project possible in the next tab under CREW!
In a time when conversations around inclusion and neurodiversity are finally taking center stage, Margin of Innocence captures the earliest moment those ideas take root, when a child first realizes the world doesn’t see her sister the same way she does. This story of sibling love and belonging offers a rare lens into how awareness and empathy are formed, long before adulthood hardens them into language or politics.While some films and shows have explored neurodiversity, few center the sibling experience and even fewer portray autism through the eyes of children themselves. Margin of Innocence fills that gap with honesty and tenderness, showing what inclusion looks like before it’s a movement, when it’s just love. Told through Ellie’s perspective, the film captures the quiet moment when innocence gives way to understanding–and how one small, painful realization becomes a lifelong lesson in love, courage, and seeing someone for who they truly are.
FOLLOW US: Follow our Seed & Spark campaign and keep an eye out for updates! We’re also on Instagram @marginofinnocence
CONTRIBUTE AND PLEDGE: You can help us by making a pledge, or simply sharing with your friends! We must raise 80% of our crowdfunding goal to keep any funds raised. Your support means the entire world, without you, this film wouldn’t be possible.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Crew Support
Costs $3,000
Our crew is the heart of this film. This funding allows us to fairly compensate and support the artists who make this project possible.
Meals & Crafty
Costs $1,600
Film sets run on good food. Your support helps us nourish our hardworking cast and crew across four full shoot days.
Equipment Rental
Costs $2,000
To truly build Ellie and Addie's world, we need the right tools. This contribution helps us make the most impactful film we can.
Post-Production
Costs $1,000
This helps cover editing, coloring, and composing. Your support ensures the story lives far beyond the set.
Locations
Costs $1,000
Locations shape the entire tone of the film. This funding helps us secure safe, accessible, and visually compelling spaces.
Authentic Casting
Costs $700
Supporting inclusive, disability-affirming casting so performers with lived experience can bring this story to life with truth and care.
Production Design & Costumes
Costs $700
Helps us build Ellie and Addie’s world through thoughtful design and costumes that make every moment feel real and lived-in.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We are a team of NYU students and alumni who are passionate about telling diverse and cinematic stories!
Lily Daroff - Writer/Director
Lily Daroff (She/her/hers) is a senior at NYU Tisch, majoring in Film & Television with a minor in Animal Studies. She has extensive experience in development, editing, casting, and production, with internships at Gulfstream Pictures, Fair Harbor Productions, and The Js. In these roles, she provided script covge, research, and creative feedback to support writers, directors, and producers.
Beyond development, Lily has cast more than ten NYU short films, working closely with directors and producers to shape ensembles and elevate performance authenticity. Her own work has screened at over 80 film festivals worldwide since 2017, including the prestigious Cleveland International Film Festival, which selected her NYU-produced documentary Cleveland. Most recently, her junior-year short Just A Girl won the Best Short Film — Festival Award at the 2025 New York Short Film Festival.
Rose Sutton - Executive Producer
Rose Sutton, of full Syrian-Jewish descent, is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker specializing in directing, editing, and photography, with a continued passion for producing. A recent graduate of NYU Tisch’s Film & Television program as a Tisch Scholarship recipient, her work explores emotional complexity, and the interplay between lived experience—past, present, and imagined—and artistic expression.
Born in Los Angeles and raised across shifting homes after her parents' divorce, Rose developed a deep appreciation for storytelling that embraces nuance, abstraction, and collaboration. Her style leans into bold visual experimentation, often merging music, movement, and layered imagery to evoke feelings that resist traditional narrative. At NYU, she created Color My Grey Street and her senior thesis, The Music Coma, now in post-production and being developed into a feature. Festival selections include First Run Film Fest, and Big Apple Film Fest. She is a grant awardee within the Clive Davis Institute and the Tisch Undergraduate Research Fund, among others.
Rose Knopper - Director of Photography
Rose Knopper is a Director of Photography and animator based in NYC. With a background in painting, she brings her visual sensibilities to narrative and commercial film work. She holds a BFA in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Her work has been featured at the Beverly Hills Film Festival (The Blue Inside), NewFest (Rope), NoBudge (It Will Happen to Us Again), and the New York Indie Shorts Awards (Fireflies), among others. She is a 2025 recipient of the Russell Carmine Award for Cinematography and a co-founder of production company Junk Flower Films with her creative partner Keya Saxena.
Skylar Kim - Producer
Skylar Kim is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, and writer working between Copenhagen, New York, and Seoul. Her work bridges the U.S. and South Korea, exploring identity, migration, and memory.
Her most recent project, Dearborn, a 30-minute TV pilot she directed, earned the Audience Award and a Jury Nomination at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY). The film was one of only two projects at NYU to receive $10,000 in production funding and was fiscally sponsored by the Arab Film and Media Institute. Her films have screened at SeriesFest, Big Apple Film Festival, and other international festivals, while her screenplays have been recognized as finalists at the Los Angeles Asian Film Awards, Brown University’s Ivy Film Festival, and Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. As a producer, her projects have received the HEAR US Award and the NYU Tisch Student Producers Grant.
Skylar studied Film & Television at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she minored in American Literature and Entertainment Business. She has held roles across development and programming – from Protozoa Pictures to Apple TV+’s Pachinko, as well as the Oscar-qualifying Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. She currently works as a Script Reader and Consultant for Wildsound Film Festival.
Harry Diamond - Co-Producer
Harry is a Jewish filmmaker from Los Angeles passionate about directing and screenwriting. A recent graduate of NYU Tisch with a BFA in Film & Television, he has worked as crew on several student narrative short films as well as writing and directing an experimental horror short last fall. He also has professional experience working for companies like DTLA Film Festival, American High Productions, and Protozoa Pictures.
Danielle Pretsfelder Demchick - Casting Director
Danielle has been an active member of the New York casting community since 2004. Nickelodeon was her casting home for over 14 years, where she tapped into her love of developing young talent. From live action and animation, scripted and unscripted, long form and short form, and even podcasts, she has and loves to cast it all!
The co-VP of Advocacy for the Casting Society of America, her work elevating underrepresented communities has been barrier breaking and continues to motivate her to manifest change in how the real world is seen on screen.
A leader in the organization's Equity in Entertainment committee, she serves on the board of both the Casting Society of America and Casting Society Cares, where her focus is on Training & Education. She prides herself on being an ally to artists and aspiring talent of all abilities.
She serves as a faculty advisor for Disability Belongs f.k.a Respectability and she is on the Actor's Fund's Looking Ahead Advisory Board. In addition to her work in casting, she is currently pursuing a master's degree in Disabilities Studies at the City University of New York. She is also a trained childhood bereavement group facilitator and serves as a member of the Caring Committee for the Wechsler Center for Modern Aging.