Filmmaker is happy to share an exclusive clip of writer-director Laurel Parmet’s feature debut The Starling Girl ahead of its limited release next week. In the two-minute long film excerpt, 17-year-old Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen) interacts with her father Paul (Jimmi Simpson). As he leaves the room after their chat, he says, “Do not tell your mama,” exiting with an emphatic “Shh.” Jem then checks a mug he was using out of curiosity. As a teenage girl living in a Christian fundamentalist community in rural Kentucky, Jem has never felt that she truly fit in. Through an escalating bond with […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 4, 2023The trailer has arrived for writer-director Laurel Parmet’s debut feature, The Starling Girl, which will have its limited theatrical release this spring. A favorite from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film follows 17-year-old Jem (Eliza Scanlen) as she tries to find her place within a fundamentalist Christian community in rural Kentucky. In an intro ahead of his interview with Parmet and producer Kara Durrett out of Sundance, Erik Luers summed up the plot quite nicely: Parmet first began writing the screenplay in 2017, soon after the premiere of one of her shorts and the wrap of another. Like her previous work, The […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 17, 2023The following interview first ran as part of our Sundance 2023 coverage. The Starling Girl releases in theaters today in NYC and LA via Bleecker Street, with more cities to follow. — Editor Telling the story of Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen), a 17-year-old living in a Christian fundamentalist community in rural Kentucky, Laurel Parmet’s debut feature, The Starling Girl, has been years in the making, Parmet first began writing the screenplay in 2017, soon after the premiere of one of her shorts and the wrap of another. Like her previous work, The Starling Girl positions the viewer within the complex […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 23, 2023Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? I’m sure I am echoing many filmmakers in saying that COVID was 100% the largest unforeseen obstacle in getting this film made. We were gearing up to shoot in 2020, and then COVID hit and the movie fell apart. Those were some very dark times for me (and for many others), and I didn’t know if I’d ever get to […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 21, 2023As the 2017 edition of SXSW comes to a close, here’s a list of eight short films I saw that are worthy of your attention. There’s no clear throughline apparent here: documentary work investigating the infected water supply of the DC water crisis, midnight selections featuring mannequin heads that come to life to suck face, and miscellaneous narrative shorts that cover everything from the ending of a romantic relationship to a bond formed during an impending school shooting. Many will continue to screen on the festival circuit throughout the year, and some will be made readily available online before you know it. […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 20, 2017