Alana de Freitas is an independent writer and producer based in Los Angeles. She has always had a love of film, and had her first up-close experience as a teenage actor on the set of Michael Rymer’s Queen of the Damned in 2002. Alana was a writer and producer for the internet lifestyle program, LifeFunk TV, and began producing narrative content in 2015 with three short films: Broken, Life After Love, and End Games. In 2017, she wrote and produced the short film Infidelity, which was selected as a finalist for Los Angeles Cinefest. She followed this up with her feature film debut, writing and producing the indie drama Before the Dawn, which is set for release in 2019. In 2018, Alana produced the short film I’m Not Here, which is now in development to be made into a feature. The LGBTQ short film Nancy marked Alana’s directorial debut. She also currently has two features in development: a horror narrative, and a documentary about an undiscussed facet of the #MeToo movement.
I wrote Nancy because I wanted to explore a familiar concept from a not-so-familiar perspective. Our lead in Nancy is Ian; He is your quintessential ‘every-man’, so when Ian learns that his teenage son is gay, a prospect that had never even entered his mind, it sends him down a path of self-examination. Ian is forced to question his own ingrained language and behaviours that he never realized could be harmful to his son. Ian deals with confusion, anger, denial, self-loathing and finally acceptance.
My aim with the film was to honor the emotions and to not sugar-coat the experience. Ian is not an outright homophobe or bigot, he is just not that woke. I also wanted to hold the mirror up to the audience, some of whom may also engage in casual prejudice, to show that we can all do better, and that learned behaviors can just as easily be unlearned.
LGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival 