On the verge of their big break, a 90s girl group will stop at nothing to push themselves to stardom. But the promise of the future shifts to a nightmare when spotlights reveal a familiar face from the past, causing their frontman Jada to freeze mid-audition. With support from fellow survivor and bandmate Sky, Jada musters up the guts to confront her assailant only to discover the night burnt into her memory is nonexistent in his--he doesn't remember her. Or does he? Given a second chance, should she take it? Would you?

Director's Statement

Although I knew I wanted to be a storyteller since the day I was born, this is not a story I ever thought I'd tell. I got my toes wet doing community theater and by second grade, I was scouring backstage.com for auditions in New York, calling everyone in my parent's phone book begging someone to take me. To all of our shock, I booked my first national tour at eight years old and continued on to perform full-time. While my many years on stage taught me what it meant to be a good collaborator, it did not teach me what it meant to be a woman navigating Hollywood. Graduating early and moving to LA on my own at sixteen, other women’s stories in acting classes reinforced that objectification and harassment were commonplace and not to be questioned. So when I entered USC as an undergraduate acting major and utilized my student status to intern around at places such as Lionsgate, NBCUniversal and The Weinstein Company, I thought I had no choice but to tolerate explicit texts and inappropriate advances from my superiors. It wasn’t until an unknown assailant broke into my hotel room and raped me while I was traveling out of the country that my capacity for abuse reached a boiling point. For the first time in my life, I went to the police only to be told that despite security tapes and witnesses, pressing charges would involve staying in the country for a lengthy trial, thus not returning to school. While my body returned to school, my spirit did not. Void of confidence, I dropped my major and stopped performing all together, losing my identity. But hiding in the back of a cinema studies lecture, I had a revelation: perhaps I still was a storyteller, just a different kind than I initially thought. Perhaps the real agency lied behind the camera, and perhaps that’s where I had to be to regain my own. My style lends itself more to comedies, teen movies, and musicals. A sexual assault story just didn't seem to fit that mold. But I began to wonder how a story could be deemed inauthentic to my style when the story was sadly the most authentic thing I've ever experienced. The result? A teen movie that reveals itself to be an entirely different beast once the foundation cracks, the same way trauma robs so many of innocence and hope. Wannabe is not just a plea to believe those who have come forward, but a cry to consider the thousands who have not.

Category: Short.

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