NYU Graduate Film alum Alyssa Loh is casting for the Short Film COPY, SAVE.
About the Director:
ALYSSA LOH is a filmmaker based in New York. She was a 2021 Sundance Lab Fellow, and was recently selected for Tribeca x CHANEL's 2024 Through Her Lens program, TIFF's 2023 Breakthroughs, and the 2023 Wscripted Cannes Screenplay List. She holds a joint MBA/MFA from NYU, where she was a winner of the 2022 Purple List.
Her short film, LET, premiered at SXSW in March of 2024, and won 7 awards from NYU Graduate Film. Her first short—a horror film titled OTHER BODIES— premiered at Fantasia in 2021, where it won Best Actor. Her essays on technology and surveillance have appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. In 2021, she co-created the experimental film series TWELVE THESES ON ATTENTION for the Glasgow Biennial. The book version (text & film stills) was published by Princeton University Press in 2022.
She holds a BA from Princeton in English and creative writing, and is represented by 2AM, the sister-management company of renowned studio A24.
This film, COPY, SAVE, received funding from the Tribeca x CHANEL Through Her Lens Program.
Character Descriptions:
ANI (16) - Asian American. A smart, sensitive teen. Suburban. Somewhat shy, but can also be playful and exuberant, especially with her older sister Casey, to whom she’s very devoted. She has total faith in her sister’s love for her. She’s a bit solitary: she’s content to spend time alone, pursuing her own lines of curiosity or interest, especially online. And she does spend quite a bit of time alone — she lives in a single parent household, with a somewhat emotionally distant dad who’s often at work. Her intelligence somewhat outstrips her social skills, and she comes off as slightly younger than she is. Think: intellectually precocious, but not socially. She is emotionally transparent and available. She’s ambivalent about growing up; she doesn’t want to get her license, and, above all, doesn’t want her sister to go away to college.
CASEY (18) - Asian American. A smart, warm, highly socially intelligent teen. Suburban. Glamorous, lots of friends, 18-going-on-22. She lives in a single parent household, with a dad who’s often at work. She’s extremely fond of her little sister, to whom she’s something between a mother and a sister — filling in for an absent mom and an emotionally distant dad. With a slightly odd little sister and an emotionally remote father, she’s used to being the only person in the room with a clear understanding of subtle social dynamics. She’s growing up, and curious about testing her boundaries (it’s easy, too, without much parental oversight). She’s running a fake, AI-generated OnlyFans-like account, both to make some pocket money and to explore who she is in the world, and how people receive her. Emotionally available. She’s accustomed to her little sister’s love and devotion — Ani’s judgment about her internet cash scheme is surprising and painful.
Logline: When two Asian-American teen sisters discover each other’s secret internet cash-schemes, they’re forced to confront the murky ethics of their digital lives.
If interested, please submit a photo and short blurb about yourself to hello@madhouse-films.comwith the subject line: "COPY, SAVE SUBMISSION // Name".
