An imaginative 13-year-old girl writes and directs a 1970s melodrama about her own coming out featuring her family playing supporting roles, but when the camera also captures every moment of the perilous and gratifying creative process, a new family narrative emerges.

For screening & print inquiries contact:

NYC | Robert Mann Gallery
ATL | Jackson Fine Art
SF | Robert Koch Gallery KS | Haw Contemporary
DEN | Visions West Contemporary MSLA | Radius Gallery

Director Statement

My 13-year-old niece Violet loves to write fiction and poetry so I encouraged her to write a short story that I imagined could be used as inspiration for my own narrative photo series. I gave her two prompts: create a story about two sisters that is set in the past. When she returned the next day with a perfectly formatted screenplay, a 1970s melodrama about an adolescent girl named Dawn who comes out to her unsupportive sister Michelle, I was inspired to help her turn her vision into a film instead.

Over the course of three summer days, with a skeleton crew and shoestring budget, we shot “WINGS” and filmed every moment in Violet’s creative journey. The film chronicles Violet’s impetus to write, direct and perform as the film’s protagonist. In one of the many meta layers in a film that echoes films-about-filmmaking like Francois Truffaut’s “Day for Night” or John Cassavetes’ friends and family dramas, Violet’s actual family performed the other key roles. In literal supporting roles, her family attempts to fully embrace (and amplify) the singular vision of this young aspiring queer artist.

I’m thrilled that this 29 minute film has a stunner of a soundtrack too, featuring the sister-fronted hard rock band, Heart; LGBTQ foremother and ‘60s teenage prodigy, Janis Ian; A.A. Williams with her haunting and beautiful piano ballad cover of the Pixies “Where Is My Mind?”; and the hit-maker Nashville songwriter, Jess Leary. Leary was so inspired by our project, she unearthed a cassette tape of a song she wrote as a teen in the late ‘70s about her own coming out story. Its title: “Wings.”