You’re Leaving Me Behind explores what happens when two best friends who have survived life and their careers together, love each other deeply but find themselves at a crossroads when they want different futures.

We’re building this film the way we build everything:

With community. With cafecito. And with a lot of heart.

This proof of concept is the first step toward independently producing our debut feature. 

It takes a village to have a child. It also takes a village to make a film. We’re doing both, and would love for you to join our village. 

The Longline:

After a brutal breakup, Elisa flies to stay with her very pregnant best friend and creative partner, Cat. Upon arrival, Elisa receives news of a career making opportunity as Cat prepares for the role of a lifetime…motherhood. Over one emotionally charged weekend, both women must decide if their friendship can survive the lives they’re choosing.

Why Now?

We (Erika and Caitlin) have been making films for 6 years, and in that time we have built a deep friendship and sisterhood that has gone through a lot of personal and professional ups and downs. This film is the first time we've written together and as a result it's the most raw, close-to-the-bone kind of story we have ever told...

We wrote this for a grant and got close but not close enough (no we won’t name names). After a couple of drinks at the premier of our last film, we made a promise to each other that if Caitlin got pregnant soon we would just make it ourselves… well one month later Caitlin was pregnant and we don’t break promises!

Since Caitlin is really pregnant (23 weeks and counting!) we are under a bit of a time crunch for filming. We’re deep in the pre-production process, gathering an amazing team of collaborators, and on track to shoot in early May. Baby is due in July-- just in time for some post production cuddle sessions! Your contribution will keep us on track to have the film ready to submit to festivals by early fall and take it (and the baby!) on the road for the festival circuit in the new year. 

Synopsis: 

Elisa is freshly heartbroken, professionally on fire, and quietly terrified of turning thirty-two without the “right” life. Cat is extremely pregnant, and trying to convince herself she can have a baby and a career and a marriage and a creative partnership without something giving. 

They’ve built dreams together, but now they're staring at a crossroads built by their different choices. 

When Elisa reveals she sold their pitch and it’s being fast-tracked, celebration turns into confrontation. And for both women, their ultimate fear surfaces: 

You’re leaving me behind.

That night, when Cat goes into early labor and her husband is stuck out of town, Elisa is the one who shows up. Because sometimes girlhood is about showing up for your chosen family.

Director's Note:

I’m 33. It’s a strange time. It's when paths really start to diverge and it’s beautiful and brutal in equal measure.

Our chosen families start families of their own. Our creative partners feel called to make work alone. Our ride-or-die best friends (who swore they never would) move to the suburbs so their kids can have a backyard.

It’s soul-warming to watch the people you love become parents. It’s thrilling to see your friends step into their wildest dreams. And it’s empowering to build a life on your own terms.

And it’s also painful. And weird. And itchy. And hard.

Thirty-something friendship is a reorientation. We’re all growing, just not in the same direction. The rules change. The roles shift. Our chosen families suddenly have families of their own and we find ourselves renegotiating our place in their orbit.

This film lives inside that tension. It sits in the space between joy and grief, celebration and loss, who we’ve been to each other and who we’re becoming.

I’m drawn to stories that live in contradiction - where two things can be true at the same time. Where something can be funny and heartbreaking. Where love and resentment share the same air. Where the biggest shifts happen in the quietest moments.

You're Leaving Me Behind is a story about loving each other through the disorientation of growing in different directions.

The film leans into the intimacy of female friendship, into that unsteady feeling of being beside someone you love and sensing something underneath has shifted. It honors the tenderness, absurdity, and sacredness of loving someone through change - and the courage it takes to stay when everything feels like it’s pulling you apart.

Because as our lives expand, fracture, and evolve… how do we continue to belong to one another?