I wanted to make a movie about having a best friend. And I wanted to show how difficult that can be. There are so many films where the fact of a friendship is a given, a constant. But that’s not how I experience friendship. For me it’s like any other kind of love: it can be hard, it takes continual work and if the friendship doesn’t keep growing then it dies. So that’s where I focused with the relationship between protagonist Casey and their best friend Robin (and the relationship between Ash and Luca).

It was really important for me to tell a story featuring queer characters but with a plot that doesn’t revolve around their queerness. The film’s characters had to be real people who happen to have queerness as a piece of their identities, and who also just happen to be living through this film.

And lastly, I really love fantasy. Odd, Terry Gilliam, Terry Pratchett, Holly Black-style gritty sardonic fantasy. The kind where you can see the wrinkles and the stitches.

And so I built a queer-inhabited fairy-tale that was driven by the twists and turns of trying to keep your friendships alive.

I hope you enjoy!

*** That was the short version, read on if you want ***

I can’t really describe how home-grown this project is. Vermont has very little film infrastructure or filmmaking networks. When gear breaks it’s a 6-hour drive to replace it. The nearest casting hub is in Boston. Many towns don’t even have cell service. So to pull off something this big required huge investment from the community.

We shot most of it on my parents farm, the rest in the immediate surrounding villages. We were able to create a complete magical world (during the pandemic) because neighbors loaned garages and power tools, universities gave us access to rehearsal rooms, we used library WiFi for endless Zoom calls and our art team worked thousands of hours through nights and weekends to hand-carve armor, build weapons and dress and paint our huge sets.

I’m really proud of this film, of everything we managed to bring to life.