Selected for Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Intensive 2016
By Carlos Aguilar | SydneysBuzzMarch 28, 2016 at 2:03PM
JESSIE KAHNWEILER
Project: “Meet My Rapist”
Jessie Kahnweiler has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, TMZ, People, The Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine, Mashable, Buzzfeed, Elle, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, Indiewire, LA Weekly, The Huffington Post, andThe Independent. At the University of Redlands, Kahnweiler quickly began ditching class in order to make documentaries. For her thesis film, Little America, she hitchhiked across the country to explore the world of America’s truck drivers. After getting dumped, she wrote and co-directed the comedic short “Baby Love,” co-starring alongside “Anchorman’s” David Koechner. Kahnweiler was selected for the 6 Points Artist Fellowship which inspired her comedic web series entitled “Dude, Where’s my Chutzpah?” Her short “Meet my Rapist,” a dark comedy about running into her rapist at the Farmers’ Market, inspired her live show “The Rape Girl.” Kahnweiler confronted her own white privilege in her viral hit “Jessie Gets Arrested.” Her latest project, for which she serves as writer, director, and stars, is “The Skinny,” a dark comedic series based on her 10 year relationship with bulimia. It premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and is produced by Refinery29 and Jill Soloway’s Wifey.tv Kahnweiler lives in LA with her plants.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is.
Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular. My project is called “Meet My Rapist” and it is loosely based on a short film I made of the same name a few years ago. After the short had it’s 15 minutes online I was moving on to other projects but I felt this gnawing at my gut. I tried to ignore it, popped some advil, and went to yoga but that gnawing just wouldn’t stop. That annoying painful gnawing was the beginnings of this script. I’ve been working on the script on and off for about a year. I’m at the stage where I need to take out most of the flippant jokes and get to the real meat of the matter – the heart, the pain. I need to live and cry this story out. Because the project is so personal it is easy for me to get lost in it. Sometimes I forget where I end and my characters begin. So being at the Sundance lab is great timing. I feel totes blessed.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
It was incredible to take a deep dive into the script with women who so deeply understand screenwriting from the inside out. The feedback was never like “do it MY way” it was more about ripping open the guts of the script and getting to that deeper level. Okay this happens but WHY? Screenwriting can be so daunting like “I need write the perfect thing so I can get an agent so I can get hired etc. ” and the process can be so lonely and daunting . But in both my sessions we just talked about human behavior and what makes people tick and it reminded me that filmmaking is magic and I’m really lucky to be here. Also a woman, it was inspiring to meet with other women who are living my dream. Who are feeling for a living. In both my sessions I laughed, cried, and go to ask as many questions I wanted it. It was basically my ideal Tinder date.
Now that you’ve gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I’m going to keep working on drafts of the script, keep sharing it with people I trust, keep begging Sundance to let me come over and eat bagels, keep pitching it to anyone who will listen, keep crying, keep feeling, keep making my movie.
