They Were Very Close Friends
West Hollywood, California | Film Short
LGBTQ, Romantic Comedy
How many lesbian couples went down in history as just "very close friends"? This film imagines one such love story lost to history's obsession with heterosexuality. A story of joy, passion, sex, and two "besties" exploiting cultural cluelessness for their benefit.
They Were Very Close Friends
West Hollywood, California | Film Short
LGBTQ, Romantic Comedy
1 Campaigns | California, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $5,003 for post-production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
90 supporters | followers
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How many lesbian couples went down in history as just "very close friends"? This film imagines one such love story lost to history's obsession with heterosexuality. A story of joy, passion, sex, and two "besties" exploiting cultural cluelessness for their benefit.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
A steamy secret romance between two 18th century gentlewomen is ON. But when their straight bestie catches them tit-on-tit and mistakes it as a mere tête-à-tête, they wonder if it’s possible to hide their big, gay love in plain sight. .
For centuries, lesbian relationships have been both foolishly overlooked and forcibly erased by historians with the sloppy application of two dangerous words: "close friends." An accepted normality of "romantic friendships" between women granted lesbians of the 18th century the perfect camouflage for their affairs... as long as certain lines weren't crossed. In They Were Very Close Friends, we meet two such lovers, exploiting the cultural cluelessness of the time to secretly bang right under high society's upturned nose.
What started out as an idea for a halloween costume quickly escalated into an 11-page script and a 5-location shoot. Our production team of 5 queer women is incredibly proud to have shot a guerilla period film on a shoe-string budget with beautiful results!
We donated our time, talents, and scrappy can-do attitudes to get our principal photography done, and now we need funding to get the rest of the way across the finish line - and ready for your viewing pleasure! We believe in compensating artists, and want to be able to pay our editor a fair wage for all the sound editing, coloring, and cutting this footage will need. And when it's all done, we'll have a proof-of-concept we can use to pitch Close Friends the series ... and we know you ALL want more hot gay TV!
It’s 1780 and summer is here, bringing guests to Erinna’s family estate - one guest in particular, the super hot (or rather hot-and-cold) Delphia. After some steamy eye contact in the rose garden, a fruity picnic, and a clandestine letter delivery, a forbidden romance blooms between the two young gentlewomen, right under high society’s upturned nose. Their increasingly careless dalliances propel them across the lawn, under the hedges, out on the kitchen table… meanwhile, their busybody straight bestie lurks around every corner, seemingly on the verge of discovering their secret. Only the cultural cluelessness of the time protects their big gay love, disguising their relationship as “just close friends.”
FIRST LOOKS TRAILER
PRE-PRODUCTION
BEHIND THE SCENES
WE APPRECIATE YOUR HELP!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
give our editor a good time ;)
Costs $2,000
Help us pay our fabulous queer editor so this thing can look and sound amazing!
festival submissions!
Costs $500
We're trying the festival thing, so this baby can get seen and heard and gossiped about!
music, darling!
Costs $1,000
Music will be incredibly important to capture the playful tone we are after! We are in talks with a few cool artists and wanna pay em well!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We are a team of friends who combined our individual talents and worked symbiotically to bring this halloween-costume-turned-short-film to life!
ABOUT US
HANNAH (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and educator with a focus on using art as activism to talk about social justice and inequality, and making important topics accessible for young people of all backgrounds. While she prides herself on having her hands in many different artistic pots, theatre was her first love and she believes in the power of performance as an impetus for disruption and reflection. Her work has been featured in Hey Alma, Huffington Post, and at the Jewish Museum of Amsterdam. She holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Penn State.
BRIGITTE (she/they) is an actor/filmmaker with a background in experimental & devised theatre. Her original work focuses on the resilience and creativity of women throughout history and how they survived under oppressive systems. Acting credits include HBO Miniseries I Know This Much Is True and AFTER at The Public Theater. She was awarded the Great Performances Artistic Fellowship for her first original short film Sweetie Pie. In her free time she is an avid backpacker and volunteers with a Los Angeles animal rescue group. She holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
LAUREN (she/her) is a filmmaker, all around creative superhero, and professional hype woman. Her time as a film major at Connecticut College culminated in her short film, Beatrice Brought Desert, winning 15+ awards on the festival circuit. She also serves as the creative director for Belle En Argent, a beauty brand that pulls inspiration from film.
ALEXANDRA (she/her) writes for the girls and the gays, and anyone who has ever wanted to see their worst revenge fantasy come true. She has penned multiple full-length plays, including one where a vagina comes to life and takes over the world.
E (he/him) is an editor, screenwriter and filmmaker whose works explore gender and queer identity in historical and fantastical worlds. Original work includes All That’s Left of Us, a 7-part web series set in the Les Miserables universe, and narrative TikTok series The Pieces, which has garnered tens of thousands of dedicated fans trying to solve the mystery of the accident. He was a 2021 AFI Screenwriting Fellow.
ASHA (she/her) is an American-born, South Indian-Scottish actor/singer based in Los Angeles. Asha made her NYC Off-Broadway debut in Heart of the Battle, and starred in Spring Awakening in LA, which raised 8K for Every Town For Gun Safety and won 9 awards at the Robby Awards and Stage Scene LA Awards, including Breakout Actress and Musical of the Year. She received a BA in Drama from the University of California, Irvine.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
A steamy secret romance between two 18th century gentlewomen is ON. But when their straight bestie catches them tit-on-tit and mistakes it as a mere tête-à-tête, they wonder if it’s possible to hide their big, gay love in plain sight. .
For centuries, lesbian relationships have been both foolishly overlooked and forcibly erased by historians with the sloppy application of two dangerous words: "close friends." An accepted normality of "romantic friendships" between women granted lesbians of the 18th century the perfect camouflage for their affairs... as long as certain lines weren't crossed. In They Were Very Close Friends, we meet two such lovers, exploiting the cultural cluelessness of the time to secretly bang right under high society's upturned nose.
What started out as an idea for a halloween costume quickly escalated into an 11-page script and a 5-location shoot. Our production team of 5 queer women is incredibly proud to have shot a guerilla period film on a shoe-string budget with beautiful results!
We donated our time, talents, and scrappy can-do attitudes to get our principal photography done, and now we need funding to get the rest of the way across the finish line - and ready for your viewing pleasure! We believe in compensating artists, and want to be able to pay our editor a fair wage for all the sound editing, coloring, and cutting this footage will need. And when it's all done, we'll have a proof-of-concept we can use to pitch Close Friends the series ... and we know you ALL want more hot gay TV!
It’s 1780 and summer is here, bringing guests to Erinna’s family estate - one guest in particular, the super hot (or rather hot-and-cold) Delphia. After some steamy eye contact in the rose garden, a fruity picnic, and a clandestine letter delivery, a forbidden romance blooms between the two young gentlewomen, right under high society’s upturned nose. Their increasingly careless dalliances propel them across the lawn, under the hedges, out on the kitchen table… meanwhile, their busybody straight bestie lurks around every corner, seemingly on the verge of discovering their secret. Only the cultural cluelessness of the time protects their big gay love, disguising their relationship as “just close friends.”
FIRST LOOKS TRAILER
PRE-PRODUCTION
BEHIND THE SCENES
WE APPRECIATE YOUR HELP!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
give our editor a good time ;)
Costs $2,000
Help us pay our fabulous queer editor so this thing can look and sound amazing!
festival submissions!
Costs $500
We're trying the festival thing, so this baby can get seen and heard and gossiped about!
music, darling!
Costs $1,000
Music will be incredibly important to capture the playful tone we are after! We are in talks with a few cool artists and wanna pay em well!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
We are a team of friends who combined our individual talents and worked symbiotically to bring this halloween-costume-turned-short-film to life!
ABOUT US
HANNAH (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and educator with a focus on using art as activism to talk about social justice and inequality, and making important topics accessible for young people of all backgrounds. While she prides herself on having her hands in many different artistic pots, theatre was her first love and she believes in the power of performance as an impetus for disruption and reflection. Her work has been featured in Hey Alma, Huffington Post, and at the Jewish Museum of Amsterdam. She holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Penn State.
BRIGITTE (she/they) is an actor/filmmaker with a background in experimental & devised theatre. Her original work focuses on the resilience and creativity of women throughout history and how they survived under oppressive systems. Acting credits include HBO Miniseries I Know This Much Is True and AFTER at The Public Theater. She was awarded the Great Performances Artistic Fellowship for her first original short film Sweetie Pie. In her free time she is an avid backpacker and volunteers with a Los Angeles animal rescue group. She holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
LAUREN (she/her) is a filmmaker, all around creative superhero, and professional hype woman. Her time as a film major at Connecticut College culminated in her short film, Beatrice Brought Desert, winning 15+ awards on the festival circuit. She also serves as the creative director for Belle En Argent, a beauty brand that pulls inspiration from film.
ALEXANDRA (she/her) writes for the girls and the gays, and anyone who has ever wanted to see their worst revenge fantasy come true. She has penned multiple full-length plays, including one where a vagina comes to life and takes over the world.
E (he/him) is an editor, screenwriter and filmmaker whose works explore gender and queer identity in historical and fantastical worlds. Original work includes All That’s Left of Us, a 7-part web series set in the Les Miserables universe, and narrative TikTok series The Pieces, which has garnered tens of thousands of dedicated fans trying to solve the mystery of the accident. He was a 2021 AFI Screenwriting Fellow.
ASHA (she/her) is an American-born, South Indian-Scottish actor/singer based in Los Angeles. Asha made her NYC Off-Broadway debut in Heart of the Battle, and starred in Spring Awakening in LA, which raised 8K for Every Town For Gun Safety and won 9 awards at the Robby Awards and Stage Scene LA Awards, including Breakout Actress and Musical of the Year. She received a BA in Drama from the University of California, Irvine.