About this project

Dear All,

My name is Thomas Woodrow and I am the writer and director of a short film called "Aunt Louisa."  We shot the film in late November and we are now raising $12,250 through Kickstarter to finance post-production and the promotion of the film through festivals. 

After having produced several features that went to festivals like Sundance and SXSW, I found myself spending a lot of time in 2011 doing something I hadn't done much of for a long time: writing.  And in the late fall, I recalled that the reason I had originally gotten into producing back in film school was that I wanted to have the autonomy of being able to produce for myself.  

And that recollection spurred the need to make something from all the stuff I had written. Right away.  After a lot of hemming and hawing about precisely what that should be, I decided that the simplest thing would be to make a short film out of the first thing I thought of as I sat there at my desk.  And that was the origin of "Aunt Louisa."  It is my first crack at getting back into writing and directing after a long time of building up my producing chops.  And as such, it is a very meaningful project to me.

"Aunt Louisa" is about a young man living with his fiancée in Manhattan, who is visited out of the blue by a strange aunt from the country, whom he has not seen for many years.  She suggests they go for coffee, during which she informs him simply that "Moira came back."  Although he at first seems to have no memory of Moira, mention of her name kicks off an odd and confusing trip through the city, out to the country and into his past.  

For me, the film is about the ambivalence we feel about our relationship to our families.  On one hand, we believe on some level that we are free to define ourselves, independent of our families or our histories.  Going home for the holidays can seem like a confusing and suffocating experience.  On the other hand, we long for the connection and sense of community and place that only family can provide in our fractured, modern world. 

Our goal for the film is to premiere it at a major festival in early 2012.  We will be making it commercially available through partnership with distributor New Video shortly after its festival premiere.

But the film is also intended as a calling card for the core creative team as a step toward making a feature film in the summer of 2012.  We have already begun to find our rhythm and are excited to work on a larger canvas.

We have come up with a fun set of rewards, but we know that raising money in this way is all about sharing a dream and spreading karmic good will.  

We appreciate your consideration and hope you will join us on this journey.  So far, it has been an exciting ride.  

Yours,

Thomas Woodrow