Stronghold

Los Angeles, California | Film Feature

Drama, Thriller

Julia Camara

1 Campaigns | California, United States

Green Light

This campaign raised $22,020 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.

156 supporters | followers

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Stronghold is a feature film about a mother-daughter duo living alone in a post-apocalyptic world. This indie thriller is written and directed by me. Written in 2012 before the pandemic, this almost prophetic story captures the feeling of isolation the world felt during the 2020 lockdown.

About The Project

  • The Story
  • Wishlist
  • Updates
  • The Team
  • Community

Mission Statement

Stronghold is a thriller written and directed by a Latina filmmaker, with an all BIPOC cast and a crew that will include women in positions women usually don't get hired like Director of Photography and Editor. This is a thriller with BIPOC characters front and center.

The Story

WE HAVE REACHED 100%!! THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE THAT CONTRIBUTED!

STRETCH GOAL TIME!

With 24 hours left on our campaign, we’ve had a generous donor commit to matching any further contributions!

Here’s why we’d appreciate your ongoing support and promotion in this final 24-hour stretch:

With $22,000 we'll be able to cover COVID testing costs for anyone working in-person during production (including location scouting, meetings, and filming).

With $24,000 we can also cover post-production film and lab costs.

Let’s make this final day one for the books!

Stronghold is a post-apocalyptic thriller about a mother and daughter who have lived in isolation for as long as they both can remember. When a stranger shows up, he threatens the life they've built together. 

Some visual inspiration:

 

ABOUT THE FILM:

SOL is a sharp, experienced hunter and survivalist who’s at home in the woods. She lives in a cabin with her mother, NENA. Their lives are all about living off the land. War and disease have transformed the world into a dangerous place. Isolation is the only way to be safe. 


Sol’s only contact with the outside world is through the stories she hears from Nena; her only memories of the world from before are faded images she doesn’t quite understand. Their lives are peaceful and simple.


But recently, Sol has started yearning for more. She wants to explore the world for what it is and experience something other than her sheltered lifestyle. Nena tells her it’s too dangerous out there for her. Nena goes on scavenging trips and always comes back with tales of infected people and complete devastation.

 


When MARCUS, an outsider arrives wounded and needing help, Sol and Nena’s world, lifestyle and dynamic is disrupted beyond repair. 


Secrets and lies are revealed as Sol and Marcus' attraction threatens to drive a wedge between Sol and Nena. When Marcus reveals to her that there was no infection, no apocalypse, no wars, Sol doesn’t know who to trust.


How far will Nena go to keep her daughter in the dark about the reality of this universe? What price will Sol pay for learning the truth?

 

 

Why Me? I'm a huge thriller and sci-fi fan. I'm also an indie film, low budget film fanatic. I'm so crazy about indie filmmaking that I've started teaching a class at UCLA Extension called WRITING A LOW BUDGET FEATURE SCREENPLAY, focusing on tips and tricks for writing a film that can be made on a low budget.

Julia Camara in the classroom teaching at the UCLA Campus back in February of 2020.

 

One of the things I've noticed is the lack of films that are of this genre that feature LATINAS. That's one of the reasons I'm making this film! I want to make a film for women of color who want to see themselves represented in this genre.

HELP US CREATE SOME CHANGE!


Why This? This is a character piece, there's a genre flavor to it, but it's a deeply intimate story, focusing on the mother-daughter relationship, something I've explored a lot in real life with my own mother and young daughter. This story also shows complex women who are not only highly skilled in survival in the wilderness, but also extremely flawed and vulnerable. 

Why Now? This screenplay has had many different lives at this point. The pandemic made me rethink this idea of a mother-daughter duo that live isolated from the world after I experienced that with my 7 year old daughter. A lot of the themes have become current because of the pandemic. I think the pandemic has given this story more urgency in a lot of different ways.

Why You? If you love genre films, indie films and want to see more LATINAS and BIPOC women in roles we haven't seen many women of color play yet, this is your chance to become a part of this adventure with us. 

Where We Are in The Process: We are crowdfunding for production only at this point. Once we get the film in the can, we will start the process of funding for post-production and beyond. Our goal is to submit this film to festivals in 2023. With this campaign you will help us get the project shot. We were lucky to have the actors available for a small window in 2022 and we decided to get the principal photography done. Once the film is shot we will release some exclusive content through this campaign and you'll get a chance to see it first hand. 

 

How We Are Using the Funds:

COVID SAFETY PLAN:

Our cast and crew are vaccinated and we will comply with all covid regulations on set, including having a designated COVID complicance officer.

 

SPREAD THE WORD:

The only way we will reach our crowdfunding goal is if we reach beyond our networks.  If you’d like to be a part of supporting Latina stories and filmmakers, YOU can make the difference in our success!

Please share our Stronghold campaign via your social media, email, word-of-mouth, however you want!  We can't do this without you!

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

Twitter:

Help filmmaker @juliamca by supporting her film STRONGHOLD about a mother and daughter duo surviving in the woods in a post-apocalyptic world. Join them on @seedandspark: https://tinyurl.com/7apr5888

Actor @oliverrayon has an upcoming film that needs your help! Contribute to STRONGHOLD on @seedandspark: https://tinyurl.com/7apr5888

Actress @Bianca00Alexa has an upcoming film that needs your help! Contribute to STRONGHOLD on @seedandspark: https://tinyurl.com/7apr5888

 

Wishlist

Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.

Cast Payroll

Costs $4,000

Our amazing actors are working for a lot less they usually get paid.

Crew

Costs $7,000

Crew costs

Travel and Lodging

Costs $2,000

Location

Equipment

Costs $4,000

Equipment costs.

Catering

Costs $3,000

Feeding our hard working crew!

Cash Pledge

Costs $0

About This Team

Julia Camara - Writer/Director

 

Julia Camara is a Brazilian writer/filmmaker. Her feature directorial debut In Transit, an experimental drama shot mostly in one day and with improvised dialogue, won Best Experimental Film at four different festivals. Julia also wrote the sci-fi feature Area Q (starring Isaiah Washington), the road movie Open Road (starring Andy Garcia, Juliette Lewis and Camilla Belle), and the award winning sci-fi found footage feature Occupants (starring Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Picardo). Occupants has screened at 150 festivals all over the world and has won over 100 awards including a Telly Award for writing. Julia teaches Screenwriting at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. In the Fall of 2020, Julia self-published the eBook That’s What She Wrote, a collection of articles and interviews about screenwriting. Julia was an advisor for the Sundance Collab course Crafting Your Sci-Fi Feature. Julia is a staff writer for season 2 of the narrative sci-fi podcast Crypto-Z.

 

Erika Doss - Producer

Erika Doss is a Unit Still Photographer for the Motion Picture and Television Industries based in Atlanta, GA. Born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. In 1999 she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in Film. In 2003, she received her degree from Columbia College - Hollywood with a Bachelor's in Cinema. It was in film school where she learned the art of photography as a way to tell stories. In 2015 Doss moved to Atlanta GA where she had the pleasure of working with 21 Century Fox on The Hate you Give, Netflix on the Stranger Things International Campaign for S3, Universal Pictures on Dear Evan Hansen and on the reboot of The Wonder Years for ABC/Disney. In 2022 Erika is using her expertise in visual storytelling to transition to producing. 

 

Bianca Santos - Lead Actress

Santos is a first-generation American who was born in Los Angeles to Cuban and Brazilian parents. Her father, Carlos Santos, is a Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro, and her mother, Carmen Carnot, is a Cuban from Havana. She has a younger brother named Tiago. She made her mark as an actress and producer, known for The DUFF (2015), Ouija (2014) and Priceless (2016). Her breakthrough role was Lexi Rivera in The Fosters (2013). She is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

 

Oliver Rayón - Lead Actor

Rayón's most prominent work came alongside the venerable Lin Shaye in the indie thriller, Room for Rent (2019), written by Stuart Flack and directed by Tommy Stovall. And most notably in Doc Holliday's Revenge (2014), a Western feature film by Lionsgate & Rapid Hearts Pictures starring Tom Berenger and Eric Roberts, where he played the infamous Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz. Oliver's acting endeavors have recently led him to produce his own content where he collaborated with collegemates Thomas Kellogg, Kyle Newacheck and Ryan Max O'Melia to co-create the dramatic web-series Studio City Kings (2016).

 

Jaqueline Fleming - Lead Actress

Jaqueline Fleming aka "JAQ," was born in Copenhagen, Denmark to an African American father and a Danish-German mother. She was raised between New York, St. Louis, and Chicago. After high school, she went on to graduate from Columbia Film School in Chicago where she was a Theatre & Dance Major. After working many years as a Film/TV/Commercial Actress in Los Angeles she felt something was missing from her journey as an actor. She was considering moving back to Chicago in 2008 to pursue her first love Theatre but instead wound up going to New Orleans to work on a film. She always loved New Orleans and decided to stay. Post Katrina she felt a need to stick around and help rebuild the city. She began volunteering at the hospitals that were short staffed and someone saw one of her TV shows in rerun and asked did she teach acting. That led to her opening an Acting Studio. It all clicked and what had been missing on her own journey as an actor was being a mentor and helping others pursue their dreams of becoming an actor. Jaqueline knew there was a calling & purpose on her life and the journey was just beginning. Fast forward, Jaqueline continues to pursue her passion for acting and has become a mentor to kids, teens and young adults in Louisiana, where she has a home. Jaqueline is the founder of Jaq's Acting Studio, where she has been instrumental since 2008 in helping aspiring actors become working actors. She has had many success stories come out of her Acting Studio including Jason Mitchell who went on to Star as EazyE in "Straight Outta Compton." She received a TrailBlazer award for her Mentorship work in New Orleans in 2014.

Current Team

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