WHAT? (Synopsis):

The Disenchantment of a Young Adult and a Wild Child is the story of Rachel and Hazel, a poised law student and a free-spirited photographer, both on the verge of emerging as their adult selves.

It’s Prague. It’s winter. It’s cold. We watch through a camera lens as Hazel chases Rachel out of the Bohemian nightlife and into their minuscule hotel room, crying “Wait!” But the magic of their rekindled sisterhood is shattered as the bitch and the brat confront their reality -- an ill Mum, dual citizenship, each other, and most paralyzing of all, themselves. Rachel and Hazel are disenchanted: life isn’t a fairytale or a perfect plan.

WHY?: 

     I actually was in Prague on the night of December 29th, 2013. I actually did go with my sister. I actually was really drunk. And I do have questions (more than I can ask here) for my family. As for the embarrassing singing...I’ll never tell.

     Months later, an ocean away, on the verge of graduating Tisch School of the Arts, my teacher Geoffrey Horne said to me,

      “Everything you hate about yourself... every embarrassing trait you are covering up,

is what makes you unique, human, and unlike anything anyone has ever seen before

....These things will make you, not break you.”

    Giving voice to those embarrassing traits, my impending graduation, a set of dying relatives, and an uncertain future, I sat down and wrote the first draft of ‘The Disenchantment’  fusing my experiences of the real December 29th with a fictional confrontation of those inner monsters.

           I made my monsters into girls.

           Two girls: Rachel and Hazel.

In confronting each other, they confront the questions:

      'Who are we?'

      and 'How do we become that way?'

It is this ‘becoming’ that transfixes me—you are not what you were and not what you will be yet; like metamorphosing Lepidoptera: neither caterpillar nor butterfly. That’s where this story takes place, in the chrysalis, on the verge of emerging with a new identity...

...an identity you don’t get to choose. Although they share the same past and blood, the girls want to emerge as radically different beings:

          Hazel fancies herself a rebel bohemian artist;

          Rachel is on track to become a sophisticated, elite lawyer.

          Both want to be beautiful.

As the film devolves from fun to dramatic, these ideas unravel. Identity—like beauty—is in the eye of the beholder, not the manipulator, and in grappling with this disparity, Rachel and Hazel, Shannon and I, and the audience, undergo a DISENCHANTMENT. This Disenchantment dispels millennial and female cinematic stereotypes: yes, Rachel and Hazel can be selfish twenty-somethings but they call each other out on it; and Shannon and I defy sexist Hollywood ‘types’ by fleshing out those molds until they shatter.

      And most importantly they grapple with growing up:

        Does growing up mean surrendering my spontaneity?

        My dreams?

        Should or shouldn't I be an artist?

        Would that be selfish?

        How do I become good?

        Forgiveness?

    Can I live with myself if I forgive people who hurt me?

        If I don't does that define me?

        Who I am?

        What decides that anyway?

        My family?

        Expectations?

        Love?

        Or...can I choose?

I can't answer those questions. I won't pretend to. The Disenchantment of a Young Adult and a Wild Child is a film about asking. My goal is simply: To ask. To make a film for anyone who has had a difficult family relationship. For anyone who has stood on the verge of huge change. For anyone who has grown up.

                                                                     ...And for anyone who won't.