Community can imply a number issues: consolation, accountability, illustration, and identification, to call just a few. The phrase holds simple energy, and our communities usually inform what we come to assume of our personal identities. What does it imply for us and our private improvement when our psychological state conflicts with the neighborhood we belong to? This week’s crowdfunding picks reckon with neighborhood.
Reflecting on the difficulty of meals shortage in British communities, Helen Iley’s “Egg & Chips” follows a mom and daughter, every attempting to grasp the gravity of their state of affairs in their very own method. Tamara Sangdow’s “Welcome Home” sees the filmmaker utilizing her identification as a Thai-American girl to discover the emotional tumult of a personality visiting her dying father in Thailand after years with out contact, wrestling with the forces of household and cultural identification. Kelsey Barry additionally takes on a heavy load of neighborhood, tradition, and illustration with the movie “Take Your Mark.” Inspired by her personal life, Barry examines the social pressures of Black excellence with its toll on psychological well being.
Questions of self-identity and the way one engages with their communities are common, so whether or not you personally establish with the plots of these quick movie tasks or not, we’re betting that their themes will resonate.
Here are Women and Hollywood’s newest crowdfunding picks.
“Egg & Chips” (Short) – Written and Directed by Helen Iley

“Egg & Chips”
“Egg & Chips,” a Raindance Finalist script tailored from a spoken phrase piece by author and director Helen Iley, tells the story of a younger British household. The quick sheds mild on the tough realities of British poverty whereas nonetheless celebrating the worth of neighborhood. It follows Flo, a ten-year-old lady who makes an attempt to feed her household by stealing a rooster. Meanwhile, her mom Triss refuses to acknowledge their impending eviction.
Iley depicts the lived actuality of these residing in poverty and feedback on the limitations to entry high-quality, nutritious meals. On the venture’s Kickstarter web page, the filmmaker attracts consideration to the truth that there are presently “4.2 million children in poverty in the U.K, including single parents having 42 percent of children in poverty.” Iley was motivated to remodel her script in mild of the pandemic and the way COVID-19 precipitated these points to escalate.
With “Eggs & Chips,” Iley is consciously making a movie wherein the story and topic are used as a kind of outreach, half of an effort to mobilize her viewers to be taught extra about and partake in neighborhood tasks. She hopes to work with native tasks and charities that particularly help “low-income families and young children facing difficulty in their daily lives,” the movie’s crowdfunding web page explains. Iley teamed up with Lineham Farm, an out of doors youngsters’s centre, the place the staff “hope[s] to host a charity screening and do ongoing fundraising for them throughout the festival period once the film has been made.”
Learn extra about “Egg & Chips” and donate on Kickstarter.
“Welcome Home” (Short) – Written and Directed by Tamara Sangdow
Writer, director, and artistic director Tamara Sangdow’s bicultural upbringing informs her upcoming venture, “Welcome Home,” a brief movie a few Thai-American girl who travels to Bangkok from the U.S. to go to her dying, estranged father. A Thai-American herself, Sangdow strives to make tales that aren’t solely considerate and genuine, but in addition push boundaries in entrance of and behind the digicam.
The story of “Welcome Home” is one such instance. Sangdow describes the movie as a private venture on a number of ranges, delving into themes of identification, interpersonal household relationships, and therapeutic from previous trauma. Filled with familial dying, ghosts, and darkish spirits, “Welcome Home” explores how “we become more at home with ourselves in addition to our physical homes,” per its crowdfunding web page.
Because illustration is essential on-screen and behind the scenes, Sangdow is working with an all-Thai movie crew — most of whom establish as ladies — for all of pre-production and manufacturing, and doubtlessly post-production.
Learn extra about “Welcome Home” and donate on Kickstarter.
“Take Your Mark” (Short) – Written and Directed by Kelsey Barry
“Take Your Mark” follows Jordyn , an achieved swimmer striving to win the state meet with a view to uphold her household’s excessive reaching monitor report. On this journey, she faces teammates actively rooting in opposition to her in addition to a string of panic assaults, forcing her to grapple along with her household’s legacy of Black excellence.
A meditation on neighborhood illustration and psychological well being, “Take Your Mark” is knowledgeable by the lived expertise of director Kelsey Barry as the one Black swimmer on her varsity staff.
In this woman-led venture, Barry hopes different Black women and girls will see themselves in Jordyn’s story and understand that their psychological well being issues, regardless of the societal expectation to consistently show themselves. “There’s always this pressure of Black excellence, to be the best because you’re representing your community,” she mirrored in her director’s assertion. “But it’s only recently that there’s been a movement to put mental health first. And in spite of this there are still those who don’t understand how important it is to prioritize mental health.”
Learn extra about “Take Your Mark” and donate on Kickstarter.
To be thought-about for Women and Hollywood’s crowdfunding function, please write to wandhcrowdfunding@gmail.com. All codecs (options, shorts, internet collection, and many others.) welcome. Projects have to be by and/or about ladies.
Discussion about this post