2026 Shorts Showcase: Creators & Cast Panel | Los Angeles, Night 2

First of all, congratulations on all of your movies. I thought it was actually fascinating that all of them have connecting threads. They're all about identity, family, cultural expectations, belonging and becoming someone. But although they're radically different genres and filmmaking methods, so we want to get into it a little bit with you. But first of all, I think we all recognize that these are very personal stories and they all appear to be passion projects, which is why I imagine you made them. So I'd love for each of you to tell us what was personal to you about this story and what was it about this story that you knew you had to make this into a film? I'll start. Yeah. So this was my thesis film at UCLA. I am. I'm a musician. I played trumpet growing up. I played in the marching band at UCLA in undergrad. And so just really quick, when I was in high school, I was approached by some of my classmates and they wanted to start a banda. And I'm like, that's not really what I do, but I'll give it a try. And sure enough, you know, we went to our first party, people got up and started dancing. And I'm like, this is the coolest thing ever. No one ever dances to marching band music like that. Yeah. I mean, I think the whole film is really, really personal. When we got together to make this film, we wanted to make it for our community because I feel like we've all maybe felt some version of that. I certainly have. And I give a lot of credit to my team who's here tonight and always that first person that's like, yeah, you should do this. My friend Tristan, who's one of the producers and art director, I pitched this idea and I was like, is that, is this crazy about a puppet? He's like, no, do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. And so I was like, okay, let's do it. And then, you know, cut to, you know, we're in a parking lot building sets underneath, you know, a hundred degree sun. But yeah, I think like once the people I showed the script to started to get excited about it, I knew like, okay, maybe there's something here. Everybody empathized with autistic despair. Yeah. So for me, you know, I decided long ago that I only wanted to make Iranian movies to be able to represent my culture because I didn't grow up seeing that. But truly, I mean, the reason this movie exists is because of Pouya, our lead and executive producer, because she's the one who actually approached me and asked me to make this film. It was her story and it took a lot of convincing for me to do it, but she told me that she needed a story like this to exist, to be able to see herself in a rom-com, which she had never seen before. And so it was between it not existing and being made by someone who necessarily didn't have that experience. But I tried to rely on her guidance and her, you know, at every step of the way, making sure that she's making sure that this movie is an accurate representation and something that doesn't end in trauma, that actually ends with a happy message. And so that's why this movie got made. For me, well, my movie is definitely a true event. So it's based on my family. And I guess for me, it was an experience that my family is still dealing with. And I wanted to find a platform for it. I wanted to find a way to get it out of me and to really deal with whatever it is I was, you know, the pain that I was dealing with that I didn't probably didn't want to confront. So the best way for me to do that as an actress first, I said, well, you know what, I'm always putting myself in other people's stories. So what about I take my story and give myself that platform to express myself and find my purpose through the pain that my family has been through. So and you know, the irony of today's worlds with cannabis being legal is something that's really, you know, deeper, has a deeper meaning for me and my family. So I wanted to share with the world in the best way possible. Well, my film Girl Dad is semi-autobiographical. I am a Chinese adoptee, and my family has been affected by dementia, specifically Alzheimer's. And I wanted to create a film that explored the intersection between memory and inheritance. And I think a term that a lot of us are familiar with is intergenerational trauma. But what we don't talk about enough is intergenerational joy and intergenerational repair. This idea that a childhood filled with love and joy and kindness and creativity can help create a regulated nervous system that we can pass on to our children. And you don't necessarily have to be biologically or genetically trained to be able to do that. And you don't necessarily have to be biologically related to someone to have an effect on future generations. So for me, love is a feeling based off of co-created memories. So what happens when those memories start to disappear? I'd like to think that the feeling stays, that it lives in our bodies, and that love remembers, and that love is an inheritance. That was so beautiful. No pressure. I have a little baby, and I'm very emotional. I was almost eight months pregnant when we shot this film, so that was very personal. My husband was the director and co-writer of the short, and we were obviously in the midst of bringing a new life into this very complicated world. And it's such a specific and terrifying moment before you have a child, and we wanted to kind of bottle that feeling up. Also, as an actress, I'm sure many can relate, it's very scary to decide to have children and have an unclear idea of what that means for your career. And so I said, I can take this into my own hands, and I can give myself a role. So that was honestly the impotence. I knew I wanted to make something when I was pregnant, and my husband and I, and he said, yeah, let's do it. So, yeah. I mean, these are empowering messages from all of you for all of us. It's really positive, and I'm just wondering, how did your vision of the short you intended to make change as it became a reality? You know, the reality versus the vision of what you thought it would be. I can start. I mean, it changed daily, I think, for us. Is that a bad thing? No, because the more we brought people in, we really leaned on their skills. You know, Jonathan Kite, who plays the puppeteer, he came on, and he has history in sitcoms. Yes. And he was able to bring a lot of his lived experience of knowing people who are auditioning and wanting something and not quite getting it. And then Amanda, our puppeteer, came on, and Otis took on a completely new life. I mean, that dual performance of learning who Otis was and how she kind of would improvise with Jonathan. And then as we went to design and build, it's really easy to write, like, the puppet walks through the set, and then you have to make the set. And you're like, oh, gosh. And so what does it look like? And so we're inventing this entire TV show that doesn't exist. And we're casting puppets. We're like, is this puppet right? Is that puppet? And then all the way up until the ending, we had a very different ending at one point. And we kind of lived with it and sat with it for a while and said, no, I think we just need to just be sincere and just own the sincerity of what this is and trust that the emotion is clear. And that's kind of the version we went with. So, yeah, I mean, we worked all the way up till the end, and it changed quite a bit. I love that you made everything. Everything was real. The puppets, you handmade everything rather than using technology. It's all from Amazon. Thank you. No, it was all everything was hand-built. Like, literally, like, we have popsicle stick models of the set. We have, you know, every single puppet is designed and built by somebody and operated by somebody. I mean, the stuff you don't even get to see, like the menu is completely written out in that coffee shop. And there's like little, you know, framed puppets, you know, like as if they're like famous people and just all this wonderful little, you know, those commercials that are in that film, they're in there for like 10 seconds. We shot full commercials, you know, to the chagrin of my producers who are here as well. But they stuck with it and they're like, you want to do a full commercial? Okay. So they exist. So, yeah, we just, everything was made, all the, you know, the little liquor bottle that he like throws, everything. So. And how much of it were you able to return to Amazon? I mean, yeah, joking aside. No, I mean, it was, I mean, the little coffee cups are 3D printed. I think really the hard part was like, who gets to take what home at the end? You know, the little puppet wax that he like puts on, I think. Derek has it. Yeah. Where's the puppet? Where is the puppet? Where is the puppet? Otis, I don't know where he is. He might be here. He might make an appearance at the party. I don't know. Actors. Yeah, exactly. I thought I was going to make a comedy. Because Jodan actually means pain in the ass in Spanish. And that's what my brother was to me, right? My younger brother growing up and we started with this, like, I started with this big idea and I had so much stuff written and it was like too big. Like, it was like this music that we used to listen to. I'm like, how much is that going to cost? So I brought on Ricky, my exec producer and also co-writer. And I was like, Ricky, you've done this before. How much is it? He's like, that's expensive. So I had this big idea about making it like super lively and like the Bronx and all these things. And we were going to shut down streets. I was like, okay, girl, this is your first film. Bring it down a notch. So I, we, we, you know, it's funny. It's like we, we did this opening that was so beautifully thought out. But when we actually tried to shoot it when we were in New York in the Bronx, it kind of didn't work the way I intended it to. So we actually went back to New York and did that analog work with a handy cam. And part of that is actually improv. The actors, most of it I wrote and then the rest, like the actors actually took the camera after we were done shooting our reshoots and they just walked around. So that Henny with piss scene and all of that and the doo-doo on the shoo-shoo, that was real, real. That was real doo-doo on the shoo- shoo. And it was in the Bronx. Of course, the Bronx is not the cleanest place. But so we were like, what if we just took that and make it work? You know, this is really cool stuff. So we, we looked at the raw footage. Me and the director, we worked together looking at the raw footage and we were like, we need to keep a lot of this stuff. So to make it more, just like more real and more grounded and give it more character. Because if anything, I mean, New York is nothing but character. So yeah. I feel like this is the first time where it was actually pretty close to our initial idea of what it would be. We had eight months to prep and we had a very limited budget and we knew we had two days. And so we kind of worked around what we had and got incredible notes from friends and colleagues that really helped us kind of have a script that was, we were actually able to finish and still built the world without seeing much of the world because of our budget. Yeah. I loved how creative you, it was in such small places and, and it felt very intimate, but really big at the same time because of the performances. So, yeah, congrats. I think each of you had very unique challenges, obviously, with all of the different subjects and things that you're dealing with, all of the moving parts in your movies. But I'm wondering if you can share, you know, what was the problem that kept you up at night? For us, the biggest thing was getting the band. We needed to, we needed to have something that sounded and looked authentic. And when you start hiring bands, and you, you know, Bandas especially, and you're asking me, can you do two, you know, 12 hour days, they're kind of confused. And then you ask them what their rate is for the band, they're like, we charge like 2000 And then you ask them what their rate is for the band, they're like, we charge like 2000 an hour, because they do like two hour gigs. And we're like, oh, so but we ended up finding this band that they were so cool. They're from the Inland Empire. And they were just amazing. They were so excited to be a part of it. And they still are, they still post about it every time we post something. So and they were the ones on the soundtrack as well. So yeah. I would say for us, it was more of a time and budget constraint, because we had to shoot the whole movie in a day and a half. And yeah, with multiple locations. And actually, ironically, Pouya is on her way here right now. And she had to fly out like that the next day after we were finished filming. So I was like, we either get her we don't like this is it she flew in for two days, we had to shoot it and then leave. And I remember on the second day, especially, I just at one point during lunch, I looked at the script, and I was like, this is not going to work. And I was like, I looked at the script, and I was like, this is not going to work. So I had to like cut a whole chunk out. And just like, be like, okay, we can rewrite this, make this work. And you just have to adapt to the situation, especially under those constraints. But that was the part that was the most difficult that I was like, I don't know how we're going to do this. But as I'm sure we've all experienced, like when you're on set, you're just like, figure it out. You know, we'll just we'll do it. So when I got to New York, and I realized, wait, we're shooting in my mom's apartment, where everything happened where I grew up. I was like, Oh, we have to move everything somewhere. I had to rent storage. It was like a nightmare. I was like, Oh my god, I didn't plan for any of this. So I had to get there way, you know, like a week or two in advance, and realized my mom's a big hoarder. And I was like, that's mom, like, why do you have anyways? Finding like, you know, old memories from like 1940 and old cassette players. I'm like, what is all this stuff? So we had to move everything into storage. And so I had to rent a car because we don't drive cars in New York. So I had to rent a car and move storage for like a whole week. That was pretty tough. And then on top of that, we were like, we're going to shoot this in two days. And that was a tight schedule. And then budgeting, we needed to remember to leave money for the weed, the real weed that we needed to buy. So it was like, find the guy and then find the weed. And then when we were wrapped, I was like, where did the weed go? Who has the weed? Remember Ricky? I was like, who took it? Because it was in a big bag as there was a lot of it for the read that take the different takes. I was like, where are all these blunts? I don't even smoke. But we had 50 scenes to shoot in five days. So there was a lot of things that were keeping me up at night. But in terms of casting, and I worked with a fantastic casting director, Christian Bustamante, who's in the audience. You know, the film is semi autobiographical. So we were sort of choosing characters that were the five year old version of me, the 11 year old, the 17 year old, the 40 year old, and then there was me and then we're all running around. And my cinematographer is doing double takes, you know. But I think the challenge of that was, I really wanted everyone for it to be believable. And I was sort of casting for looks at first. And then we had fantastic actors that came in that kind of looked nothing like each other. And I started to lean into more of just who felt right for the role, like in here. And then I thought about the notebook and how Noah and Duke look nothing like each other. And I thought if the notebook can do it, I can do it. But I think also, to Christian's credit as well, he is so much more experienced at this than I am. He does this day in day out. And he pushed me to look at actors that I had initially passed off maybe for looks or other things. But I'm seeing such a small window in terms of auditions, you know. It's a two to three minute thing. And he's been dealing with these actors for years in some cases. And so he asked me to bring some people in for a second read. And I did. And we ended up casting some of them. So really just trust your collaborators and that will help you sleep at night. I think my husband would probably have different answers than I would. He was the director. For me, it was being almost eight months pregnant. And we had, besides my husband and the actors, it was a crew of four. And I'm not good at sitting still. So holding myself back from trying to move boxes was one of the biggest challenges for me. I mean, it's amazing that you had such tight shooting schedules. And I know three of you made films for less than $20,000, which is incredible. And I want to ask all of you, because you're all working on tight budgets, where did you choose to save the money? And what did you think was important to spend money on? You can save money. You made everything, right? I could have done that. I mean, this is, to me, an obvious thing, but put the money on the screen. We wanted to make sure our crew was fed and our cast was taken care of. But if you're going to see something, we really wanted to make sure that there was integrity, that it held up there. And then also just making sure, learning how to do puppetry from our puppet producer, and knowing, okay, we need to have wranglers. That's an important, that's a role that I didn't know you needed. You need monitors. Okay, I didn't know that the puppeteers had to see what they were doing. Cool. That makes sense. All those things. So just making sure that A, the tools are there to do the job, and everybody feels supported. And then two, that the money shows up on screen. For me, it was important to have the proper lenses. And then in post, you know, working in post, I wanted to make sure we had a very experienced sound engineer and colorist, and a group that works well together to make all of it look beautiful. And also our DP, who actually worked for us pro bono, because he happens to volunteer as a teacher teaching cinematography in a school in the Bronx. So it was really special to him. And even our production designer, she used to substitute at my brother's high school. This was all stuff we just started finding out when we just got to know each other. And my director shares a birthday with my younger brother, who the movie's about. So all these coincidences. Basically, we were able to keep the quality and, you know, everything without having to, you know, overexpense during production while still getting our crew fed and also paid. But we also saved a lot on location. Location, because we were friends with the Bodega people. Obviously, my mom, although she wanted to charge me, she didn't. I gave her a background role. She's really happy to be on screen. She's in the Bodega. So that was the way I paid her. Wait, wait. So which films are under $20,000? Because mine certainly wasn't. That's amazing. I mean, this was actually the first time I had a budget higher than like $2,000. So for me, it was honestly that it was such a nice feeling to be able to pay everyone in the crew, not just like a minimum rate, but like a proper rate. Because usually it's you ask a lot of favors. We save money by getting all the locations for free. You know, I ask favors to shoot at someone's house or get all that. And then that money was able to go to the crew and just making sure we're not only hiring the right people, but paying them an amount that makes it worth their time. That's not a favor anymore. They are actually there because they see it as a proper job. And also being able to do it properly sag, probably paying the actors, like all of that. It was the first time I had experienced that. And I was like, oh, wow, this is a nice feeling that we get to do this. Yeah, I'll say too, like the location thing makes so much sense. We found a studio that happened to have a puppet workshop already in it. And I was like, okay, so we're going to do the TV show here and we're going to go to the Bob Baker Theater to do the puppet. And my one producer, Derek, was like, why? There's a puppet studio right here. We could save so much. So like, again, I give a lot of, you know, finding those efficiencies is so important and like knowing what you can do inside of your limitations. Yeah, I think we feel a happy cast and crew just creates a better project. And when they're feeling respected and for their time and creativity, it's just going to make your project and your outcome that much better. And then again, just writing around what our budget was, knowing that we could make this very small room feel larger with our world around it, even though you never see it with that like sci-fi element. But yeah, cast and crew for us is worth that. Feed your people, feed your people. People that are fed are going to be really happy the moment they're, I mean, it was like such a huge deal. I was like, what do you want for breakfast? We're going to order everything from the bodega. It was great. And the bodega was like, we'll make whatever you guys want. So was that what you paid them in fees? Like you were like, I'm going to order all my craft. What do you guys want? I know I actually also paid them, but like, no, no, I mean with the bodega. Oh yeah, yeah. I basically sent everyone there. Yeah. So they were really happy. Collaborate is so important. Everybody you choose to work with, the family you have on set. But I'm wondering with your actors specifically, was there a performance in one of your films that changed the way you saw the character from your script? I'll start. Oh, go ahead. Correct. So Mel and Camille, who are the receptionist and the clerk are close friends of mine. And we found Craig, we knew him from Drunk History and then saw him on The Pit and we offered him the role. And this was the first time we've ever done that. And he brought, first of all, he's here and he's just so wonderful to work with and brought such a lightness. And I just it's it was so interesting walking in after writing this character and not knowing what was going to come back at me. And he gave me everything I could have dreamt of and more. And yeah, I'm just so grateful that we had the chance to work with him. Yeah, for me, working with Marabina, who's here present, and then Anthony as well. Just always so happy to be on set. The first day was we were filming in July and it was like 80 something, almost 90 degrees. And we're outside, we're doing the party scene. But, you know, everyone was just so excited to be there, seeing the whole production come together. And just that enthusiasm, right, to be an actor and be a performer and to tell the stories that we wanted to tell. Right. Because only, you know, we wanted to share this story and share our music and our culture and just the whole time. And then still we shot in 2024 in the summer and still continuously being so supportive and championing the film and getting it out there has been really amazing. So. One of my, the little girl who came in and just blew everyone away with her talent, she actually changed the way I saw myself in a way, especially that scene where she's crying after the bullies. And we offered her wet look tears and she said, no, I can do it. And she lay down and she cried her eyes out and the entire cast and crew teared up. And then after I said cut, I went over and I gave her a big hug and it was like hugging five year old me. So that was like 30 years of therapy right there. Just great. It was cool to see our cast evolve. You know, the producers were always kind of these like written that way. But I think Derek was like, oh, they should be twins. And then Jonathan was like, I know the Sklar brothers. We're like, can you call them? He's like, yeah. And so like, it was just interesting to see. I mean, the little girl at the end was originally written as a young boy. And, you know, we found somebody that's actually her mom and that's her daughter. So like their family, which is really cool. And I think just like as we cast the puppets too, like they took on their own personalities. Like at one point there's a muffin in there, which he has an English accent apparently, and he's called English muffin. And there's all these characters, you know, they all came to life. And, you know, Jonathan was running around doing Jason Statham as this muffin. So, but it was really cool to just see, like, we didn't expect that we would get the cast that we got. And so as people continued to say like, yes, and we can, you know, everybody kind of filled in. It just felt like the right family for the film. For me, because I had to cast someone who looked similar to me and kind of had that rapport with Gregory, who played Joelle, that, you know, same like you, like seeing a version of me was really, I don't know, just deep for me. And Gregory Diaz IV, who played my younger brother, was really beautiful to watch. I kind of had to relive a lot of things that probably I had held back watching the film, even I always get a little teary-eyed about it. Just watching it, there we go. Just every time I watch it, I'm like, wow, we, because my brother is still in Dominican Republic. So it's just like a reminder of like what our relationship was like. So it was really beautiful to watch her really transform into that character and really have offset, like behind the scenes, like she just had such a wonderful relationship with Gregory back and forth. They would bicker. They still do actually at the premiere we had in New York, like brother and sister. And I'm like, wow, you have more fun than I did. I'm like, this is crazy. It was really beautiful to watch. And Elizabeth Hay from DPD Casting, Help Us Cast, and that, you know, it was hard to get everyone who looked like the family because it was casting my dad. I was playing my mom and kind of like making sure everybody looked and felt like my family did. So, but it was beautiful, beautiful to watch. I didn't expect, oh, oh, it's back. I didn't expect to feel the way I did when I watched it back on camera. Yeah, on the big screen. I mean, for me, obviously, my dynamic with Pouya, who's finally here, she got here after a long flight, unfortunately. You know, it goes beyond a collaborator. This is her movie. And for me as a director, when I was watching her on monitor, there were so many moments where I was just in awe. Like I wasn't, there was no point for me to give notes. It was just kind of sit back and follow her lead and kind of watch her, not just in the specific emotional moments that, you know, like that one specific moment where she has to cry, even just the smaller moments and the micro expression, I was just kind of watching and going like, wow, you know, and we hadn't worked with each other before. So this was such a beautiful experience and every step of the way it's been us, you know, from the inception of it till the very end, you know, so that was a very transformative experience as far as like me working with an actor. And, and so this, we always say, this is our baby, you know, from the title to everything else, we came up with it together. So, yeah. And Gregory, was it different for you to direct puppets rather than actors? No, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the first Amanda Maddox, the first thing she said that I remember her saying was every shot with a puppet is a special effect. And so she's like, so how many shots are a special effect in this movie? And I was like, all of them. And then the other thing she said was it's an illusion. It's a magic trick. You know, the puppet is not real. You know, somebody has to bring it to life. And, you know, it was really interesting, all the decisions you have to make about how high is the puppet? Where do they sit in the frame? How high does the set have to be? How do you, you know, how do you rig certain things so that the puppet can move through space? So Amanda was on carts and stools that had wheels on them and, you know, everything sort of had to be configured and framed in a very specific way. But in some ways, it was very much like directing actors because she was so good at what she did that at a certain point, I just started directing Otis. I was like, Otis, can we like, you know, maybe and she's like, what? And she would poke her head up from underneath the set. And I was like, oh, yes, Amanda. Yes. But it was really it was cool to see that illusion work so well that even I forgot, you know, that this this character was was being created by someone else. So in many ways, very, very different, but in some ways the same, you know, just you want to get that performance and you want to get the eye line and the emotion and, you know, a lot of a lot of props to Jonathan as well, who never puppeteered before this, as far as I know, maybe limited puppet experience, but really dove into it and like learned it and became like one with Amanda to create that that like two hander literally. I wonder if you can share some sort of hard and experience that you learned on these films. You know, what would you tell another filmmaker in order to help them so that they didn't have some of the difficulties that you won't have again, because you've already figured it out. Don't do it. Just don't do it. Okay. Give yourself more days. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah. Two days is not enough. You guys. Yeah, give yourself more time. You always you're always going to need more time than you need, that you think you need, and possibly a little more money than you think you need. Definitely a little more money than you need. Yes. Yeah, definitely budget for the film festivals and the travel and everything else because that can end up costing you as much as the film itself. Yeah, I mean, trust your trust your team. You know, I'm not a puppeteer. Maybe I'd like, you know, like to try now, but hire the right people, let them do their job, trust that they're going to do it. Get out of their way. Yeah, and just going off of that, hiring the right people. If you find someone you really liked working with, bring them on your next project and kind of help each other up. We worked with a lot of our same crew from our second year film that we really enjoyed working with. And that first day, I don't think would have gone as well as it did if we didn't have that same crew, everyone just kind of being excited to be back together. And one other thing for me, I had a lot of people that I, you know, I was finding, you know, other producers and people around me to just mentor and ask questions. And I got a lot of I don't think that's going to work. Oh, I don't know that someone's going to do it for this price or whatever. That rate's not going to work. That's not, you know, I got some of that from certain people. Do it anyway. Ask the questions. Negotiate your break. If you if you need to, you know, just try it. Because if you don't try, you won't know. And every time I did that, it went thankfully, gratefully, and I'm blessed it went my way. So but if I had listened to that person, or a couple of people, it would I would have never done this project. Also, I had the ultimate deadline of giving birth and having that deadline was incredible. There was no we couldn't go a day later. So get pregnant. It's good to have deadlines and and goals. So So what is your goal? And the journey? Can you tell us a little bit about the journey of the movie for each of you after you have finished post on your film? So there's festivals and can you just give us the idea of the goals for each of these projects? I had actually written the feature version of this film. It's a completely different story. But I wrote it a couple of years ago. And so this became the proof of concept. It had some similar themes and similar emotions. But we're now in development for the feature. And it's all very exciting. My film was also kind of like a proof of concept as well. I'm working to get the feature done as well. And I also plan on partnering with nonprofits, particularly immigrant defense projects, who actually advocates for bringing people who have been deported for marijuana charges or any, you know, any kind of thing like that back to the states and kind of getting them back into civilization and, you know, back to being just a regular human being and working person. So I am a big advocate for justice. And so my hope is to really work with them and some other nonprofits I'm interested in to help any youth that's gone through that and any family that's actually dealing with that right now. I mean, similarly, you know, the goal is always a feature. And I think these shorts really help kind of set the tone and also be able to show it to a producer and say, this is what I was able to do with this much money. What can we do with like a million dollars? And so that's always been the goal from the start. And also just telling more Iranian stories, which is my own personal goal. Yeah. So our film premiered in May in Dallas and we won the grand jury prize there, which means we qualified for the Academy Award. Thank you. So right now we're taking the film out to festivals and kind of sharing it as far and wide as we possibly can, both to like, you know, kind of hopefully the message will come through and start conversations about mental health. We've had some meaningful conversations with the Mental Health Coalition, trying to learn how to message around that and share the film, you know, to start those conversations. And then, you know, ultimately I just want to see more Otis. So, you know, we'd like to have a feature down the road or, you know, some other form where he comes back. We made the short truly just to make something at this time and fell in love with the story and the world. So we are in the midst of writing the feature version and it became a proof of concept. So yeah, we just started a festival. We premiered at Dances with Films and hopefully more to come. And this was such a wonderful place to come to next. Also, this is an incredibly organized program. I'm so grateful to be here. So. And for us, yeah, we're kind of wrapping up our festival run, but we also screened in New York at the Children's International Film Festival. We won the jury award there as well. So we have, yeah, well, we qualified as well for the Oscars with that award. So congratulations. So, yeah, in terms of a feature, yeah, we'll see what happens. I'd like to mix my love of Bandhan music with hopefully some crime drama in the future. All right. So we have time just for one more question. And so I would ask each of you, what did making this film give you personally that you didn't have before? A deeper purpose for me. As an actor, the reminder that I have more control over my career than it sometimes feels like. Yes, I would echo that. Agency is so important. Don't wait around for other people to green light you. Green light yourself. Go make the thing. Do it on a budget. Do it for little you. Do it for future you. I think just for me, it's a new perspective and just like a deeper empathy through the conversations that I've had. And again, I just thank Puyo for all of that. So, yeah. You know, just with all the love the film has gotten, knowing and realizing there is a space for Latino stories in this industry. And so just that that's a very comforting feeling when you begin to embark on such an ambitious or like difficult career, right, to get into, to break into. And of course, with our amazing cast and everything. Yeah, I think, you know, making this helped me learn that like a lot of those anxieties and things that I might be feeling or have, you know, witnessed some of my close friends feeling is more universal. And so I think that's a big part of it. I think that's a big part of it. feeling is more universal than maybe I expected. And so I think what the gift that this film has really given me is the opportunity to talk to people who are just graduating college and kind of connecting with the film and are worried about certain things. And, you know, people who are newly retired going through an identity moment or, you know, people my age who are saying like, oh, I felt this. And so just just feeling a lot less alone, you know, in making this film. I think every actor in the room could empathize with the producers like first day on set, sign the contract. But I want to congratulate all of you because all of these movies are really about communities and experiences that we don't often see on screen. And so I want to thank you for making them and for coming to share your process with all of us this evening. Thank you so much. Thank you.