Controlling the Narrative, a genre-expansive short centers on Danica Stone, a cutthroat Latina
Hollywood producer. Pressure is building at work for her to greenlight a script, but Danica is
increasingly losing touch with reality and control of her life, in direct response to her repression
of grief.
Danica has been estranged from her mother for years, triggered by her mother’s transphobia
against Jesse, Danica’s trans nonbinary child. When her mother dies, Danica’s lack of resolution
with her precipitates a “cinematic dissociative disorder,” where fantasy starts blending with
reality.
Jesse, themself a budding storyteller using writing to try to understand family dynamics and
history, eventually helps an initially resistant Danica learn that the only way to regain control of
her narrative is to let go of what she can’t control.
