Attend Film Prize in-person October 16-17th or watch online starting October 15th, watch all 20 short films, and then you can vote for the grand prize winner of $50,000 cash. Plus you can vote for the best acting performance category!
Two women in a beauty salon transform a playwright’s day before his play world premieres.
Written by Brian Egland
Produced by Brian Egland, Carlos Jimenez, Jannet Lopez, and Yeshaya Bagwell
Starring La’Zaron Goodman, Jordan Joseph, Natalie Spencer
Cinematography by Yeshaya Bagwell
Edited by Carlos Jimenez
Mostly a playwright, this short serves as Brian Egland’s first screenplay. He is a native of the “Crawfish Capital of the World” Breaux Bridge, a graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, is a recent alum of The National Black Theatre’s I AM SOUL series, which presented his sold out New York debut, The Festival in da Back, directed by Nic Ashe, and can be seen in the major motion pictures “We Have A Ghost” starring Anthony Mackie and starring Nicholas Cage.
Carlos Jimenez was born in Venezuela, raised in Miami, and currently based in New Orleans. As director, DP, and editor, Carlos helps others bring their stories to life with Ghostwright Media, while experimenting with various concepts in his own projects. His work has screened at the Louisiana Film Prize, Worldfest Houston, Waco Film Festival, El Dorado, and Phoenix Film Festival. Through his DP work with ComfyStone, Carlos supports organizations such as the Louisiana Children’s Museum, The Water Justice Fund, and Son of a Saint. Carlos thrives on collaboration and aims to craft bold, conceptual films with heart.
Coming Soon
This Louisiana top 20 Film Prize film started as a DM on Instagram. Carlos, who is the co-director on this film, sent me a message with a request to write a short personal story. The Day I Met Aretha Franklin is a true story from my life, but I didn’t want to retell my story. I’m way too young for a biopic, way too unknown, and what happened that day was virtually simple to me. But the feeling wasn’t.
So my goal with the film was to recreate the feeling – to create something that could bring me back to a simple moment of my life where a friend and a stranger impacted me more than they ever knew.
I mean, that’s how this whole film came to be. Carlos’ dm.
When I said yes to it, I wasn’t saying yes to making a movie. I don’t write films. I’m a playwright, and at the time I was working on my New York City theatre debut. When I said yes to this project, I said yes to Carlos. I said yes to a guy I didn’t know well, but who had made a big impact on me in the few times I’ve been around him.
And the beautiful thing about this film is that it is artistically both me and Carlos.
Carlos is the HD Sony Film Camera whose name I could never say right, and I am the $200 dollar Sony Handycam literally working in tandem to create yet also capture the feeling of memory and friendship of The Day I Met Aretha Franklin – the title of this film, but also a marker for how I have artistically chosen to document and name this special day in my mind.
We filmed with our two Sonys in the same beauty salon I went to in real life on my day I Met Aretha Franklin. La’Zaron Goodman, who plays a version of me, is wearing the same suit I wore that day. His hair was done in the same way mine was, by the same stylist – my Chap. Even the jewels in his hair…leftovers from mine.
And La’Zaron has a connection with this handycam. He is now a senior at UL Lafayette, but when he was a Freshman he starred in a play I wrote and directed. We used this same handycam to document the journey of that play. Now, in this film, the handycam helps establish the feeling of lifelong friendship between two actors who had only just met in real life. It creates nostalgia, allowing parts to feel like ART’s memory of the day, while the HD Sony camera becomes ART’s memory becoming clearer.
And though I didn’t want to make some biopic of myself, artistically I believe I did.
Whether it’s understood or not, there’s a feeling in this film. It was present the two days we shot it. It’s ever present in the vibe of the movie. And that feeling is the feeling I felt The Day I Met Aretha Franklin.
– Brian Egland
