Grieving the Girl

Logline

After a teenage girl gets her period, she embarks on a humorous quest with her friends in order to discover what it means to be a woman.

Synopsis

Grieving the Girl is a comedic drama about a high school girl named Danaya who finally gets her period at the somewhat delayed age of 16. Although this is a normal part of girls life, Danaya is upset and terrified, seeing her period as the end to her childhood and thus her freedom. With the help of her friends, Avery, Quinn, and Mila, Danaya embarks on a humorous quest to find out what it means to be a woman. 

Making a film is expensive, which is why we need your help! To make this project the best it can be, we need funds to hire crew members, pay actors and to properly dress our film sets. The graphic below will show you exactly where your money will go. And remember, no contribution is too small! A contribution of just $20 dollars gets our crew and cast coffee for the day (one of the most necessary supplies for a long day on set!).

Being a girl is hard. Being a woman is harder. And we often don't talk about it openly. Grieving the Girl addresses some of the everyday challenges and troubles girls face as they mature and become full-fledged adults in society. The fact of the matter is girls are expected to mature faster than boys and it's this precise conditioning that imposes adult responsibilities and notions on young girls often before they are even ready. These serious topics are addressed through a lens of humor because sometimes laughing is the only way to process things. Although the girls in the story believe they are grown up, their hilariously immature and childish approach to things proves that just as boys get to be boys, so should girls get to be girls.  

The inspiration for this story came while I was sitting in my Wednesday afternoon acting classes. Two students had just finished performing a piece in which they played teenage girls. Our teacher and acting coach then broke down the performance, telling us that every coming-of-age story created is essentially a story about grief. The person must mourn their old way of life (their childhood) in order to accept and be reborn into their new way of life (adulthood). I was fascinated by this interpretation of what it means to grow up. And so I wrote Grieving the Girl, where the main character is forced to literally grieve the sudden loss of her childhood as she supposedly becomes a woman. 

I hope this story can inspire people to have compassion for others and to develop some sort of understanding and empathy for what it means to be a woman. When I started to workshop my screenplay and send it around to trusted writers for feedback, I was initially hesitant to have my male counterparts read it. Would they get it? Would they even find it funny? To my surprise, they loved it. One colleague was surprised to find out how much he didn't know and expressed how he actually learned from my script. For me, that was the nail in the coffin. I knew I needed to get this project made. Finally, not only do I want that this film to inspire and teach others, but I also hope to just make people laugh. The severity of everyday news and issues today can often feel like a weighted blanket. Sometimes all we need is a few minutes to laugh at the absurdity that is being a human being.

Thank you all for your support. We could not do it without you.

Sincerely,

Victorya Cintra