A lustrous and tender Texas tale of loneliness and uncertainty, director Daniel Laabs’ feature debut tracks the uneasy coming-of-age of Maya (Tallie Medel), whose on-again, off-again relationship with her free-spirited girlfriend Jules (Betsy Holt) proves more thrilling than comforting. After a night of backwoods raving and hedonistic mischief, Maya and Jules total their car in an accident, but are rescued by Freddy (Robert Longstreet), a divorced oil surveyor with repressed desires and a stoic façade that shows signs of crumbling as he and Maya begin a mutually inspiring friendship.
Short Before the Feature: A Hand // Prashanth Kamalakanthan :: Lines get blurred after Lisa’s coworker offers to drive her home.
Bio
Daniel Laabs is an award-winning filmmaker. He has received funding from Austin Film Society, the San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation and USinProgress – Wroław. His short film work has screened at film festivals around the world, including: SXSW (Grand Jury Prize), Outfest, Frameline, Maryland, Memphis, Palm Springs, Denver, and Dallas. His debut feature “Jules of Light and Dark” was invited to participate in the Austin Film Society Artist Intensive in 2013, the No Borders Co-Production Market during Film Week in DUMBO, Brooklyn in 2016, the Independent Film Project Narrative Completion Lab in 2017 and the 2018 Cannes Producer’s Network. His second feature film, “The Expat” (in development) was invited to participate in La Biennale di Venezia College – Cinema in 2017 and US & French Connection Co-Production Market in Paris in 2018.
Daniel currently lives in Dallas, TX where he works as an editor and as a festival programmer for the Dallas International Film Festival and the Oak Cliff Film Festival. In 2014 he co-founded Dallas’s first monthly LGBT film series at the historic Texas Theatre.