Join Film Fatales for a discussion about Acting in Your Own Film with multi-hyphenate creators Josephine Decker (Shirley, Room 104), Rain Valdez (Razor Tongue, Lit Girl) Tamara Bass (Baby Boy, If Not Now, When?), and Sujata Day (Insecure, Definition Please).
For many filmmakers, directing themselves is the scariest and most daunting part of a project. In this session, we will learn from four multi-hyphenate Film Fatales members about how to direct your own film while also acting in it. What does it mean to be a multi-hyphenate and juggle wearing different hats on the same project? Through the Lens will offer real world advice for navigating working on both sides of the camera.
This event is open to the public and will be accessible with live captioning.
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Josephine Decker most recently directed the feature film SHIRLEY, starring Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg and Odessa Young. Part of Time Warner's 150 incubator, Sundance Institute's New Frontier Lab and one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film, Josephine Decker has been said to be ushering in a "new grammar of narrative" by The New Yorker. Her feature MADELINE'S MADELINE world premiered at Sundance 2018 where it was called a "mind-scrambling masterpiece" by Indiewire and received rave reviews from NPR, CBS, Village Voice, Hollywood Reporter and many more. The film was nominated for Best Picture at IFP's Gotham Awards and for two Independent Spirit Awards. Josephine premiered her first two narrative features at the Berlinale Forum 2014 to rave reviews, and her documentary work has played SXSW, Tribeca and aired on Netflix and MTV. She also produced a series of shorts for The Museum of the City of New York, during which she had the pleasure of covering actual activists like Angy Rivera, who works to unify undocumented immigrants. Josephine's TV directing includes HBO's ROOM 104 and an upcoming episode of Megan Abbott's Dare Me for USA Network. She created a Virtual Reality piece in residency at Wolf Kino in Berlin. Her VR work has been incubated at Sundance's New Frontier Lab and Oculus' DevLab.
Rain Valdez just received her first Primetime Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series" for her lead role in RAZOR TONGUE, which she created, crowdfunded and produced. Rain is the 2nd transgender actress to ever be nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting category and the FIRST Filipina American transgender actress to be nominated. Rain is also the founder of ActNOW, the first and only acting class in Los Angeles prioritizing a safe space for LGBTQIA actors and teaches beyond the binary. Rain got her start playing 'Coco' in season 2 of TV Land's Lopez and doubling in Amazon's Transparent as Miss Van Nuys on screen and a producer behind the scenes. Valdez's rom-com short Ryans, which she stars in, screened in over 15 film festivals worldwide after premiering at Outfest, winning the Jury Award for Best North American Short at the NCGLFF. Rain's short film Hexed was nominated for Best Director, Best Comedy and Best Actress at the Madrid International Film Festival. Rain has been named one of Outfest LA's Next Generation of Filmmakers and is Inside Out Pitch Please! Contest 2019 winner. She recently starred in a Paul Feig directed, half-hour comedy pilot for Freeform TV, guest stars in Amazon's Sneaky Pete and can also be seen in the CBS All Access new show Why Women Kill. Her 7-part web series Razor Tongue, which she wrote and stars in, had its international premiere in Toronto at InsideOut Film Festival, its US premiere in San Francisco at Frameline Film Festival of June 2019, as well as, premiering in LA at the Outfest Film Festival.
Tamara Bass started her career in front of the camera, with roles in "Baby Boy", "Boston Public" and "The Fugitive" among others, Tamara began her transition to working both angles, with her short film "Exposure" that ran the festival circuit. The film garnered a lot of attention when it made its debut at The Pan African Film Festival. It went on to screen at The Reel World Film Festival, after being solicited
by their programming director. "Exposure" was also nominated for a Kodak Award at the Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival and premiered in New York at the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival. Tamara also wrote, produced and directed her second short film, "Broken" starring April Lee Hernandez and Dorian Missick. She followed that effort, when she created, starred and directed,
alongside business partner Meagan Good, the successful web series "All That Matters", that launched on WorldStar Hip Hop. Tamara's feature film debut, "If Not Now, When?", was released by Vertical Entertainment in January 2021, after it premiered at American Black Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Jury Award for Best Narrative feature, Best Screenplay (for Tamara) and Best Director (shared with Meagan Good). In addition to ABFF, "If Not Now, When?", screened at Urbanworld, Portland Film Festival, LA Femme, as well as internationally at Toronto Black Film Festival and Da Bounce Urban Film Festival in Amsterdam.
"If Not Now, When?" was also a part of ABFF's inaugural Global Series, when it was screened in London as part of their kickoff. Tamara followed that up by directing "Don't Waste Your Pretty" for TV One, which debuted in February 2021, as well as writing/executive producing "The Color of Love" for Lifetime. Tamara's second film for TV One, "Coins Forever", recently premiered on the network and she is currently in post-production on an upcoming episode of the 3rd season of BET/BET+ anthology series "Tales". Tamara actively pitching other film and television projects as both an actor and director, sometimes both at the same time.
With her infectious personality and unique sense of humor, Pittsburgh native Sujata Day has established herself in Hollywood as a multi-hyphenate performer, creator, writer, and director. She honed her improv comedy and sketch-writing skills at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and regularly performs in UCB's hit Asian AF show. Sujata is known for her starring role as CeCe in Issa Rae's The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. She's recurred for three seasons on HBO's Insecure. Sujata is a Sundance Lab screenwriting fellow, Sundance Film Festival influencer, and HBO Visionaries Ambassador. Her narrative short film, Cowboy and Indian, sold to a major studio for series development with Sujata writing, producing and starring. Sujata wrote, produced, directed, and stars in her award-winning feature film, Definition Please, coming soon.