Film festival season is upon us and local filmmaker Laurie Clemens Maier has been on a roll with her short film “47,” co-written by and starring her longtime friend and collaborator at Laurel Leaf Productions, Laurel Harris. “The Dude is Legit” is a feature film making the rounds written by Maier and her brother, Dan Clemens, about his college baseball career. All the while Maier works as the assistant director and producer of “An Aspen Christmas Conspiracy” with Graham Northrup and writes for two more films in collaboration with Harris.
Maier and Harris have known each other for nearly 25 years and have collaborated on several projects. The story idea for “47” came about as they discussed medical check-ups. Both women realized how little was being discussed regarding infertility.
“It started just as us girlfriends talking about a doctor’s appointment where one of us had been told by the doctor, ‘Your eggs are too old; I wouldn’t use these,’ and how much of a gut punch hearing that was,” Maier recalled. “But the other one said, ‘Yes, that happened to me as well.’ So we both had these terrible moments with our gynecologists about having kids. We had this moment where we thought about how women don’t often realize how frequent this happens, and we need to talk about it.”
After going through “a million different versions of the script,” Maier and her collaborator filmed the version which has been sweeping up awards throughout the film festival circuit. Some of these include “Best Drama” at the Santa Fe Film Festival and the New York Film and Actress Awards, “Best Ensemble” at the Rock The Shorts Film Festival, “Best International Short Narrative” at the Ottawa Film Awards and “Best Women’s Empowerment Film” at the Cinema Odyssey Film Awards.
Discussing these achievements, Maier said how honored she feels, specifically regarding the “Best Ensemble” award from Rock The Shorts. This, coupled with all the hard work that went into the film, has her eager to share it with more audiences.
“[The organizers of] the Rock Your Shorts fest created that award for us because they were so impressed,” Maier stated. “Toward the end of the year, ‘47’ will be available to the general public. It takes a while to go through this festival process, but we’re excited to show people that haven’t seen it, so stay tuned for that.”
“The Dude is Legit,” Maier’s feature film, has also been gathering awards and finalist placements. These include “Best Original Screenplay” from ZEPfest and “Best Feature Screenplay” at Oniros Film Awards, Garden State Film Festival and International Independent Film Awards. Additionally, Maier was proud to announce the film has been “optioned,” meaning a producer has secured the rights to take it further. “Hopefully she’s going to be able to get it in the right hands and get it sold, or find somebody who wants to make it and include us in that,” Maier stated.
Another feature film, “Pink Boa,” is being written in collaboration with Harris and has already won numerous awards in screenwriting competitions. The film will focus on sex trafficking and misconceptions on the subject. Maier acknowledges that while seedy cases of people being plucked off the street do happen, they are few and far between. There is a deeper, darker reality lurking.
“We started researching this and I began to realize how much I was wrong about the topic,” Maier admitted. “I realized how long it has been underneath our noses and how it lives in every community. If [a film] could help people who are sucked into it … it’s totally worth all the hours that will need to be put into it.”
For more information about “Pink Boa,” visit www.laurelleafproductions.com/projects