Bring So Long, Farewell (a feature film) to life

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I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.  — Emily Brontë

From the team that brought you Time in a Bottle... Cinderella Pictures and Spectre Wolf present:

SO LONG, FAREWELL: a feature film.

Six years after their high school graduation, a group of gifted theatre students return to their small Wisconsin town for the funeral of a former classmate.

Spring, 2012. In the small town of Crestwood, Wisconsin, the opening night of Crestwood High School’s production of The Sound of Music is underway. The seniors are ready to put on one last special show before each faces the looming pressures of college and adulthood. Annie plays Maria. Thomas, her boyfriend since freshman year, works the lighting booth. With both set to attend college in different parts of the country, they ward off the looming inevitability of their breakup. Her best friend, Marin, is Liesl, and their friend Evie, who dropped out of school to give birth to a son, watches them from the audience.

Winter, 2018. Thomas is now a college graduate living in Boston with a new girlfriend, Hannah. He’s recently been laid off from his job when Evie calls him with the news that Marin has died in a car crash; Annie thought he ought to know.

As the Class of 2012 reconvenes in Crestwood for Marin’s funeral, memories long buried swell to the surface as the gifted theatre students reflect on their grief and the different directions life has taken them in.

The Players

Aesthetics

Blue Valentine, The Edge of Seventeen, Manchester by the Sea, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are all aesthetic and thematic inspirations for this film, portraying all shades of memory, summer, winter, and how the past always seems brighter than the present.

Timeline and Budget

Production will occur in two stages in 2025. Production 1 will take place in January (4 shoot days) and June (5 shoot days) in 2025. We are currently fundraising for our Production 1 budget ($10,000). Once we reach this goal, we will incorporate the next stage, filling in any gaps with private investments. Anything raised beyond $50,000 will go to the film, offering better meals and accommodations for the cast and crew and equipment as well as festival submission and travel fees once the film is complete.

Further Breakdown (Part 1):

CAST FEES: $4,375

CREW FEES: $4,700

TRAVEL/MISC: $975

Why This? Why Me? Why Now? A note from the writer/director, Eleanor Wells:

This story is a love letter to own coming-of-age in the suburbs of Milwaukee Wisconsin in the early 2010s and a time in life when creation for art simply for the joy of creation, without the weight of adulthood and the world’s expectations, was enough. When I graduated high school and left the state, I was woefully unprepared for the challenges that were ahead. Due to a variety of world circumstances, my generation has been fighting an uphill battle in an attempt to define ourselves and the kind of people we want to be in the midst of inflation, wars, and a pandemic. For artists, there is no one path to success, and the feeling of watching life happen around us is all too familiar.

I have struggled with depression and anxiety for much of my adult life, and my quarter life-crisis upon turning twenty-five was so severe that I came the closest to ending my own life than I ever had before. When I told those I trusted, so many shared stories of times that they took or almost took similar action.

The arts have tremendous power to bring meaning to our lives, bring people together, and foster lasting relationships.

The story of So Long, Farewell is told equally in two timelines; the spring of senior year of high school, and six years later, in the midst of a cold February weekend when everyone returns to mourn the life of their friend, lost too soon.

It acknowledges the mixed emotions being on the brink of so much change and the uncertainty about what will happen in the future.. Its message is that the only constant in life is that everything changes, and that what gives life meaning are the memories and relationships we form along the way.

I am beyond thrilled to put it out in the world.

Love,

Eleanor Wells

Our Past Work