Alone Girl

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ALONE GIRL is a coming of middle-age story wrapped in an (UN)Romantic Comedy about a perpetually single late 40's woman who is thrown headlong into a quest for love & marriage after her father's dying wish that she find a partner. Along the way, she finds something more important... herself.

 

SYNOPSIS:

SAM PENN is a perpetually single woman in her 40s who lives with her cat, JACK. She feels like a failure in the love department and she suspects the problem is, in fact, her.  Sam is thrown headlong into a journey to find a partner by the well-meaning people in her life, who are all sure that if she could just find love, she’d be happy. Believing them all, Sam turns to her closest friends for help after her terminally ill father, lays one last guilt trip on her… “I want to die knowing you’re taken care of.” And “Operation Find Sam a Husband” is launched. Sam navigates a series of bad dates set up by her friends, then surprisingly finds that an old flame is still alive between her and her college friend PETE FRANCIS. They give in to their old attraction and Sam seems to have found her perfect guy.  She dives in, falls for Pete and commits to their relationship. Everyone around Sam rejoices, as far as they are concerned, she’s on her way to happiness. But Sam starts to lose herself  and compromise on things that are important to her, and she can’t shake the feeling that something doesn’t feel completely right. Her world is rocked when her father passes and her mission has seemingly failed. Reeling at her father’s wake, she’s reminded of some old advice she once gave to an adult nephew of hers. “Living for others expectations never leads to happiness.” Sam takes her own advice to heart and realizes that if she wants to be happy, she needs to be true to herself. Before Sam’s figured out what to do about Pete, she finds herself being proposed to by him. Much to Pete’s surprise, Sam turns him down, because she’s realized she prefers to be single. Sam’s friends confront her and ask why she broke up with Pete? Sam can’t believe what she’s hearing and that they are all defending Pete. Then, she proceeds to dress her friends down pointing out the hypocrisies in their own relationships culminating with them announcing “Fine, if you want to be alone, then be alone”.

 

Sam is truly on her own now and must deal with the consequences of calling all her friends out. In a low point as she’s doom scrolling on Instagram, Sam sees that Pete has posted a photo with someone new! … #lovestory. As if that weren’t bad enough, she “likes” the post by mistake… what has her life become? She wants her friends back, so she uses her passion for words and writes letters to each of them then mails them off.  In the meantime, Sam gets an idea: she sets herself up to host a podcast on choosing to be single and takes ownership of the situation by deciding to call the show “Alone Girl – A Lone Girl.” A couple days later, on New Year’s Eve, Sam is getting ready to spend a night in… on her own, when her friends, happily, show up unannounced at her door. “We’re sorry too!” Sam and her friends make up and they let her know that the letters she wrote let them see how they were judging her not seeing her. Later that night, it’s midnight, and Sam is smiling big, rides her long board with wild abandon down her street. She is free. Above her fireworks explode and she rides into the new year as her true self.

 

CRIS GRAVES - Writer/Director  

 

MISSION OF PROJECT:

My name is Cris Graves. I am a single woman in my 50s. I’ve never married and live on my own. Yes… I have cats, Bobby & Chadwick Pawsman. Your initial response might be pity, but guess what? It’s a choice and I love my life. I am a joyfully single middle-aged woman. A minority. It might not be illegal (yet) but society has prohibited women my age from feeling comfortably spouseless. I’ve made it my goal to alter this perception. This is why I wrote ALONE GIRL. Women are indoctrinated from the moment the first Disney princess film is put on for us to watch. Our primary goal in life is to find a partner. We’re taught that our happiness relies on being “chosen” or having to “find” a partner. Regardless of our ambitions or aspirations, settling down is the one, true recipe for a content life. I spent many years consumed by this myth, believing there must be something wrong with me, even falling into depression trying to live up to these expectations. I’m not alone. How many women are there in unhappy relationships because being in one—no matter how unsatisfying—is what they’re “supposed” to do? I’m not the only one.

BIO:

I am an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who has worked across platforms from film to television to online content. My work has spanned the globe as a producer/director, filming in some of our planet’s harshest and most remote areas. My credits include The Amazing Race, Whale Wars, and Living Undocumented. I’m also an award-winning narrative filmmaker, and my projects have been screened in various film festivals including the Cannes Film Festival,

Oaxaca Film Festival, and Hamilton Film Festival to name a few. My feature film script ALONE GIRL was a semi-finalist in three categories of the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition 2019 as well as earning a spot on The Bitch List 2020 and it was in the top 10% of the 2020 Nicholl Fellowship. Also in 2020, I was chosen as one of 25 screenwriters to watch by the Austin Film Festival. And as if my plate isn’t full enough, I also host & produce my own podcast called Blissful Spinster. On a more personal note, I’m the youngest of six and a proud Gen-Xer who was born in 1970, in New Hampshire but soon found myself being moved to Mexico City, Mexico at the tender age of one, where I lived until I was almost 19. This makes me what some term a “third culture kid”… it also means I never quite feel like I fit in… no matter where I am, I’m a perpetual fish-out-of-water, and I love it. It means I’m in a constant state of learning and curiosity…and that is a beautiful place to be. Now that I’m a certain age, I’ve turned my curiosity inward, I’m writing scripts to direct that explore how, I, a single woman in her 50s (with cats!) fit in the world made to disregard our place in society… don’t worry I make comedies!

Alone Girl

DONATE HERE

ALONE GIRL is a coming of middle-age story wrapped in an (UN)Romantic Comedy about a perpetually single late 40's woman who is thrown headlong into a quest for love & marriage after her father's dying wish that she find a partner. Along the way, she finds something more important... herself.

 

SYNOPSIS:

SAM PENN is a perpetually single woman in her 40s who lives with her cat, JACK. She feels like a failure in the love department and she suspects the problem is, in fact, her.  Sam is thrown headlong into a journey to find a partner by the well-meaning people in her life, who are all sure that if she could just find love, she’d be happy. Believing them all, Sam turns to her closest friends for help after her terminally ill father, lays one last guilt trip on her… “I want to die knowing you’re taken care of.” And “Operation Find Sam a Husband” is launched. Sam navigates a series of bad dates set up by her friends, then surprisingly finds that an old flame is still alive between her and her college friend PETE FRANCIS. They give in to their old attraction and Sam seems to have found her perfect guy.  She dives in, falls for Pete and commits to their relationship. Everyone around Sam rejoices, as far as they are concerned, she’s on her way to happiness. But Sam starts to lose herself  and compromise on things that are important to her, and she can’t shake the feeling that something doesn’t feel completely right. Her world is rocked when her father passes and her mission has seemingly failed. Reeling at her father’s wake, she’s reminded of some old advice she once gave to an adult nephew of hers. “Living for others expectations never leads to happiness.” Sam takes her own advice to heart and realizes that if she wants to be happy, she needs to be true to herself. Before Sam’s figured out what to do about Pete, she finds herself being proposed to by him. Much to Pete’s surprise, Sam turns him down, because she’s realized she prefers to be single. Sam’s friends confront her and ask why she broke up with Pete? Sam can’t believe what she’s hearing and that they are all defending Pete. Then, she proceeds to dress her friends down pointing out the hypocrisies in their own relationships culminating with them announcing “Fine, if you want to be alone, then be alone”.

 

Sam is truly on her own now and must deal with the consequences of calling all her friends out. In a low point as she’s doom scrolling on Instagram, Sam sees that Pete has posted a photo with someone new! … #lovestory. As if that weren’t bad enough, she “likes” the post by mistake… what has her life become? She wants her friends back, so she uses her passion for words and writes letters to each of them then mails them off.  In the meantime, Sam gets an idea: she sets herself up to host a podcast on choosing to be single and takes ownership of the situation by deciding to call the show “Alone Girl – A Lone Girl.” A couple days later, on New Year’s Eve, Sam is getting ready to spend a night in… on her own, when her friends, happily, show up unannounced at her door. “We’re sorry too!” Sam and her friends make up and they let her know that the letters she wrote let them see how they were judging her not seeing her. Later that night, it’s midnight, and Sam is smiling big, rides her long board with wild abandon down her street. She is free. Above her fireworks explode and she rides into the new year as her true self.

 

CRIS GRAVES - Writer/Director  

 

MISSION OF PROJECT:

My name is Cris Graves. I am a single woman in my 50s. I’ve never married and live on my own. Yes… I have cats, Bobby & Chadwick Pawsman. Your initial response might be pity, but guess what? It’s a choice and I love my life. I am a joyfully single middle-aged woman. A minority. It might not be illegal (yet) but society has prohibited women my age from feeling comfortably spouseless. I’ve made it my goal to alter this perception. This is why I wrote ALONE GIRL. Women are indoctrinated from the moment the first Disney princess film is put on for us to watch. Our primary goal in life is to find a partner. We’re taught that our happiness relies on being “chosen” or having to “find” a partner. Regardless of our ambitions or aspirations, settling down is the one, true recipe for a content life. I spent many years consumed by this myth, believing there must be something wrong with me, even falling into depression trying to live up to these expectations. I’m not alone. How many women are there in unhappy relationships because being in one—no matter how unsatisfying—is what they’re “supposed” to do? I’m not the only one.

BIO:

I am an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who has worked across platforms from film to television to online content. My work has spanned the globe as a producer/director, filming in some of our planet’s harshest and most remote areas. My credits include The Amazing Race, Whale Wars, and Living Undocumented. I’m also an award-winning narrative filmmaker, and my projects have been screened in various film festivals including the Cannes Film Festival,

Oaxaca Film Festival, and Hamilton Film Festival to name a few. My feature film script ALONE GIRL was a semi-finalist in three categories of the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition 2019 as well as earning a spot on The Bitch List 2020 and it was in the top 10% of the 2020 Nicholl Fellowship. Also in 2020, I was chosen as one of 25 screenwriters to watch by the Austin Film Festival. And as if my plate isn’t full enough, I also host & produce my own podcast called Blissful Spinster. On a more personal note, I’m the youngest of six and a proud Gen-Xer who was born in 1970, in New Hampshire but soon found myself being moved to Mexico City, Mexico at the tender age of one, where I lived until I was almost 19. This makes me what some term a “third culture kid”… it also means I never quite feel like I fit in… no matter where I am, I’m a perpetual fish-out-of-water, and I love it. It means I’m in a constant state of learning and curiosity…and that is a beautiful place to be. Now that I’m a certain age, I’ve turned my curiosity inward, I’m writing scripts to direct that explore how, I, a single woman in her 50s (with cats!) fit in the world made to disregard our place in society… don’t worry I make comedies!