Synopsis

Yanisa is a kind-hearted Muay Thai fighter and is conditioning for her big match at the local Muay Thai competition. One night, her world comes to a halt due to a horrifying assault. As she tries to balance her school, family, and boxing life, she realizes she has to continue to train for her match, and for her survival. For even when she's knocked down, Yanisa knows what needs to be done to get back up, at any cost or sacrifice, she always pushes on.

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This film will go into the complexity of the successes and failures that survivors have to deal with in a society that often preys on victims. Not wanting to exploit the assault, we’ll tell the story of Yanisa’s road to recovery that mirrors many other tragic stories, and what it means to evolve past the victim and become the survivor.

Our film is meant to empower other people who might have been in similar situations to stand up and find their inner strength. There are so many injustices done towards women in male-dominated industries, we want to send a message that women can stand up for themselves and should. 

Undercard's cast and crew comprise 70% of people of color, female-identifying, and LGBTQ artists. The incredibly diverse cast and crew with this project have demonstrated a level of artistry, dedication, and passion to film. We’ve worked carefully to craft a script that gives insight into the struggles from researching the legal system, the mistreatment of victims, and digging into personal traumatic memories. We felt that in order to bring authenticity and respect to this subject matter that we ourselves would need to dig deep and understand the hardships and complications around communication, consent, and sexual acts.

Director Anchitta Noowong wanted the story to reflect Thailand’s culture and to show the fighting, not in the traditional Hollywood style, so a fight coordination script was created in order to help assist the actors and fight choreographer to get a better understanding of how we demonstrate the movements and what they mean to the characters. This film demonstrates the need for the duality of strength and vulnerability in the journey to healing.  

Budget

Open doors to future people of color, and female-led productions by contributing to our campaign and make Undercard a reality!  Our expenses include cast and crew, food and transportation, production design, gear and rentals, post-production, film festival fees, and crowdfunding fees.

Risks and challenges

Every film has its own risks and challenges. There are many variables to take into consideration before we start filming. Authenticity was something we strive to recreate to near-perfection in our film. The culture of the film is the central essence of Undercard. It was a risk and is still a challenge for us to maintain the progress we have made with the actors. Because so much of the film involves Muay Thai, a part of our expenses go to paying a professional trainer to work with our actors to make sure that the art of Muay Thai is respected. Our actors, Kvetka and Billy are hardworking and dedicated people who train 3 times a week in preparation for the film. With so much time put into training, we make sure to take precautions and have a medic onset each time. The exercises that actors go through are also supervised by a professional trainer. To make sure that everything that goes onscreen is sincere, we are not using any stunt doubles. Although risky, it also proves just how determined our team is into portraying the culture of our film.

Because of the specificity of our film, one of our challenges is finding a location that suits our needs. Compromising in this area is difficult as it will risk losing a part of the integrity of the art form. We as a small crew remain in constant communication and have a healthy connection with actors months before production starts so that filming will go smoothly. We also make it a point to update our social media to ensure you are always in the loop with this project's progress. With that being said, if there is anything you are curious or concerned about, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Covid safety has been a serious topic for Undercard as well with several production delays until we had the ability to film while remaining compliant to covid regulation. Precautions and guidelines were created for all cast and crew, and coordinated with our locations and vendors.  Everyone involved being required to show a vaccination card as well as a negative test.  Rapid tests also provided on-site for anyone with obstacles obtaining a regular test.

We've pushed through these challenges because we believe that Undercard is an important story to tell right now.  The world is experiencing a wave of female and BIPOC-helmed projects and we want to keep that momentum up by making Undercard. We have been working on reviving the production for over a year now and with the cast and crew's ongoing enthusiasm and support, we thought it best to bring it back now.

Grants

The entire team at Undercard feels extremely grateful to receive a grant from the Regional Arts + Culture Council to fund the project. Despite the aid, we still require $10k to tell Yanisa’s story and bring it to life. Your generous contribution is greatly appreciated and will go towards production costs which include cast & crew wages, equipment rentals, insurance, COVID costs, and any other additional fees that production requires. You will also be supporting BIPOC and LGBTQ artists by contributing to our production. 

The team behind Undercard are 70% cast and crew of color and female/female-identifying crew - all of whom are less likely to be hired in bigger budget productions. Hence, we want to make sure the crew are well compensated for their time and skills. With Undercard, we strive to create a production that is highly respectful and comfortable for all cast and crew regardless of ethnicity, identity, or status. 

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