Travis Gonzalez will be directing his original senior thesis film with a young group of undergrads from Yale University for the culmination of his major in Film & Media Studies. An alumnus of the Susan. E Wagner High School Scholars Academy and the valedictorian of the Class of 2012, Travis shifted interests from STEM towards the arts, serving as the president of Bulldog Productions, Yale’s only student-run film production organization for two years, and as the director of the Yale Student Film Festival, both in its inaugural and current year. Over Dinner is his most challenging narrative project to date, and his most personal.
Over Dinner is an original, dark comedy about an evening in the relationship of a mother and daughter. The story centers on the tension between single-mother Anne’s inability to let go of the past and her own mother Eleanor’s willingness to forget. Anne is frustrated by her role as strict authority figure in her son James’s life, while Eleanor has the freedom to shower her grandson in special attention, the kind Anne was denied growing up herself in a single-parent, low-income household. Her actions bring the adults down to a child-like level, all for James to see.
The film, which is currently casting its performances and securing location spaces, is being made in conjunction with four other senior film projects. Yale University is not known for it’s film production classes, and support for these projects is extremely limited. Over Dinner, with the the breadth of it’s narrative material and movement away from a university setting, aims to break away from these limitations placed on storytellers. It’s not the typical story about students, made by students. Over Dinner is currently crowdfunding to cover production expenses.
The film will screen as part of the SENIOR THESIS block within the 2nd Annual YALE STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL this April.
If you would like to find out more about the film, visit their Facebook page here: www.facebook.com
Or, to find out how you can support it through crowd funding, visit their Seed & Spark campaign: www.seedandspark.com
Contact Information
Travis Gonzalez, Student Filmmaker
917 208 8201 (cell)
travisjeffrey.gonzalez@gmail.com
