Director’s statement: 

Screenwriter Emily Somer’s adaptation of Ruth Galm’s novel "Into the Valley" initially intrigued me because of its 1967 Sacramento Valley backdrop and both the time period and landscape’s unrelenting effect on the main character Beverly (who goes by B.). Most of my previous work has been focused on stories where the landscape plays a heavy factor on the behavior and choices of the character. The American road trip movie is typically overly-romanticized, but here: it's a force to survive. The question of B.'s sanity and well-being begins to heighten as she progresses further into this unforgiving landscape. There are also societal changes that B. struggles to maneuver between the way she was raised in the 40-50s and the explosion of counter culture in the late 1960s - an entirely new wave of thinking and living for the majority of the population in a very short amount of time. B.’s bizarre choices during her 30th year are unexpected and often off-putting. Yet, even though it’s set in the 60s, it feels eerily modern to how much life has changed between my childhood in the 80s and 2023. And even more personally, I related to B’s urge to leave the city because of her extreme anxiety because of my own anxious tendencies. But relating to B.’s anxiety only went so far. While I consider myself a fairly highly functional anxious person, B. is not. As the story progresses, and her choices get more irrational, I began to question whether it was only her surroundings affecting her, but self-sabotage and ultimately mental health issues as well. So, what also drew me to her story was how following along with her actions was almost a “choose your own adventure” for myself. I could put myself in her shoes and imagine what I could have become under different circumstances… but also knowing that society in her time doesn’t really have the answers yet to aid her in that anxiety and mental health.

But, maybe she’d feel mostly the same in today’s world.

Here was a woman dealing with scenarios while traveling that aren’t much different today. Traveling on your own always carries its own risks, especially when you're a woman. This is as true in 2023 as it was in 1967. When we began location scouting for this project late 2021-early 2022, we were dealing with cat-calls and ogling bikers in the very places we planned on filming. Much has changed in our world in five decades... and yet not enough, many would argue.

I had equal part fascination and admiration for a woman traveling on her own and trying to find herself in a new wave of society, combined with dread and frustration when she just can’t seem to figure it out and continues spiraling. In contrast, you have The Girl, a young hippy teenager at the beginning of her spiritual and personal journey, with optimism in her eyes, even if she thinks she knows everything there is to know about politics and the state of America. She is B’s opposite, and the audience might think this relationship will bud into a mother-daughter dynamic that enriches them both….. but it doesn’t.

The world is rich and nuanced in Galm’s “Into the Valley” novel, and Somers has done a tremendous job adapting it. My challenge was to take all I discovered in the novel and feature length script and deliver a faithful, inspired version of Somer’s short proof of concept script, which essentially begins in the middle of B’s journey. As director, I wanted to build the world as much as I could in a short film, while leaving enough intrigue and questions lingering at the end that the audience would want more… and hence be a successful proof of concept for the feature.

I’ve enjoyed diving into 1967, as well as the California I didn’t know existed: the locations that seem frozen in time in the Sacramento Valley and Delta Bayou, remnants of a past that is largely forgotten in the mainstream cliche’s of California palm trees and glamorous luxurious lifestyles. Sacramento Valley can be an unforgiving territory, and even effected our crew during production. It’s very easy to see how a fragile character like B. could be both romanced by the idea of the wild nature of it, and broken down past recognition by the bitter end.

As a short proof of concept being used to pitch the feature script, this may very well be my only chance to tell my version of this story. And I believe it'll hit a cord (albeit not the same one) in each audience member. At its core, it may seem like a ‘60s female bank robber adventure with a cool mustang as eye candy. But “Into the Valley” speaks gently about the human condition under societal and circumstantial pressures that all genders can relate to in some way.