I couldn’t believe the reach that we had for this little film that didn’t really solve anything. It was just about this tiny transitional moment that felt so important to me. It just made me realize the power of this subject matter. It also made me realize the power of Anna, my sister, in the film, and just how captivated people were with her, and how universal she was as a lead.

Q: As you started creating the script for the feature, how did you determine what the story would be for the feature? How did you expand all the details from the short?

One version had the sister being the main caregiver and the main character with Anna. I felt like that story has been told. I also felt like it made the sister sort of the answer to the caregiving dilemma in this situation.

So, I just sort of started playing it out and trying to find a way to make the story more specific and nuanced. I also wanted to find the dynamic that not yet been told.

I think it’s interesting and rare to see a father taking care of this his adopted daughter with a disability. It’s also rare for him to feel that much love and responsibility without questioning it, in order to normalize it.

LS: I think the hardest part was just getting all the financing together and building the team. It’s a very hard time in this world to be making film. That process felt long to me. But I feel lucky because everybody who’s involved in this film believed in it so much. There was never a question if Anna should be the lead. They believe in the vision and my leadership so much.

So I was really lucky. I feel like when I was making the film, I could really trust my gut. So making the film was hard and impossible, but I learned a lot. But the hardest part of making a film is just getting the funding together to reach your vision

Q: Speaking about securing the funding and the budget, you also served as a producer on the feature. How did you work with your co-producers on the new full-length adaptation after you made the short together?

LS: I was really lucky because the short film won a grant with Janet Yang. It was the Julia Gouw short film competition with Cape (Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge). That brought me in to create new relationships in the industry.

Janet is still on the project (as an executive producer). So she’s really championed the project for a long time.

I then found Caring Across Generations, whose mission is just so exactly aligned with this script. They’ve been helping find financing, and also advising for this film and the the impact campaign afterwards.

But the real turning point of it was when we went to Tribeca and we pitched at AT&T’s Untold Stories. It blew us away. We won $1 million of a production award, and we then pieced together the rest of the funding. We then went into production immediately afterwards.

So that program, led by Bryce (Norbitz) and Michelle (Hamada), is so incredible. They are so involved and filmmaker supportive of the vision.

They never jumped in to control any part of the process. That was very fortunate to me because I don’t know how I would make a film this without a team like that.

Q: Besides Anna, the new movie also stars Victor Slezak, Ali Ahn, Marceline Hugot and Shane Harper. How did you approach casting the supporting actors in the drama?

LS: I think about this entire film process as led by Anna because we had to make a very specific environment for her. So in the casting, I really thought about the human that I was casting their comfort and um and maturity to take Anna seriously and challenge her and their lack of ego so that they could really give to Anna and be playful. Anna responds to good people.

So I just wanted to sense out who these people, actors were, who these people were, their sense of the story. and then look at their background and and I really was leaning towards people who had a background in theater, who could do repetitions, who had a deep love for process, people who are ready to be game for, a very malleable process where we pivoted,daily there’s only a certain type of person, an actor, who can take on an experience like that.

Q: Once the rest of the cast signed on, what was your experience like in working with them to build the characters with them?

LS: I think a big part of it was  them meeting Anna and understanding the way that she takes in information, the way that she reacts to situations because Anna has little short-term memory. She’s not going to memorize a scene. I never wanted her to just be a puppet or regurgitate, information. I wanted her to feel natural and have agency and be inside her body and her words. So I think once they understood her then it was about um going into the scene understanding the scene using it as the structure and then being playful within it but really understanding what you can you need to give to Anna to get a response and how you’re going to respond to you know what’s in the room. So the rehearsal is really just about an understanding of the situation.

For Anna, she had an acting coach who was incredible, who really treated her like a professional. They read the script, they practiced because she has this incredible long-term memory.

So, there were these beautiful moments where sometimes in a scene, we would prompt lines for Anna. She would be repeating them. We’d slowly pull back and we’d see what would happen how she would understand the scene.

There was one time where her long-term memory snapped in and she remembered the entire scene and all of the beats. It just flowed together in this really incredible way.

Q: Do you feel that being like also like real locations helped her in her acting and really connecting with um her co stories and the story?

LS: Yeas, absolutely. For Anna, she has the shortcuts of the story. We shot in her home. She’s playing a version of herself. So,

however she reacts to a scene is correct, she does understand like pretend so she knows that these are her pretend dad, her pretend sister. she has that kind of understanding and maturity whether she can articulate that clearly or not. I know she has that deeper understanding. I mean I think she’s she was I’m not sure. And also once you finished uh filming the movie, what was your process to editing the feature and really figuring out how to expand the story from the short?

This film was like a lesson in instinct and pivoting. You know, the process I’d say the film making the or the production period was about pivoting to whatever’s in the room and um and following the instinct. Um sometimes we wouldn’t even know if we got a scene. I would just have to collect and know that there were enough moments in there that were going to work. And I always knew based on my experience with the short film that we would go into the edit, we would choose all the parts that felt honest and real and resonated and then we would figure out what the scene was, what the film was.

And so that was really the process of it. you know, I believe in just taking all your favorite parts. Um, and somehow you’ll see a theme in that. Um, so it’s really, I think, the magic of film making. Um, and this kind of process.

LS: I haven’t really taken it in. I feel like it’s very overwhelming. It’s very, you know, people use the term surreal all the time, but I feel like it feels very real and very palpable, it’s very intense. But my north star always is just that like I Anna’s coming to Sundance and I can’t wait for the world to meet her and for her to be a star and that’s all I care about.

The thing that I want people to take out of this film is is to to love her, to understand that she is equal and she’s incredible and magnetic. and I think if you can feel that kind of love and agency and see the power of her on screen, that’s what’s going to change, make people active, to change the way they make films, to change who leads the film and to be active in the community to change the policies and make healthcare more available.