Donate to Emergency Contact: A Love Letter to Aunties

A few weeks ago, I tweeted, "Shout out to the REAL aunties! We are essential workers lol." 130,000 people agreed. This tweet , viewed by 3.8 million people, affirms the driving force behind my new short film, Emergency Contact.

Emergency Contact is a short film about surrogate motherhood through the lens of an auntie. Our protagonist, Troy, is a child of Hurricane Katrina, now in her 30s, who rides out the storm with an unexpected visitor–her niece, a 4th grader anxious about the family's fate. This comedic drama is filled with fantasy in a heartwarming 10-minute short.

In light of recent weather events and on the heels of the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Emergency Contact is a timely story about having childlike faith to weather the storms of life.

We recently wrapped production and the visuals are breathtaking.

Our production crew is comprised of talented crew from Baton Rouge and New Orleans. A portion of our budget goes back into the Louisiana economy as we work with various local entities, including our sponsors Panavision, The MBS Group, and New Orleans Video Access Center.

Emergency Contact is a women-led production across every department. Women represent 95% of our predominantly BIPOC crew.

This short film was born through a classic millennial tale–Stevee-Rayne and Tyler met on Twitter. In 2022, we briefly bumped into each other at American Black Film Festival and again the following year at Tribeca Film Festival. This second meeting would spawn several ideas as we discovered many similarities: our undying love of the South, our love of romantic comedies, and our love of being an auntie. As we went our separate ways at the airport, we made a pact to make a movie together.

Here's where your money goes:

-Crew labor

-Editing

-Sound

-Color

-Visual Effects

-Film festival submissions

Thank you for backing this project and supporting independent filmmakers.