About
Willa Caul is a struggling New York photographer getting by on flair and grift. When she gets a call from her home town sheriff, she reluctantly returns home to coal country to ID the body of her estranged mother, Ruby, who disappeared when she was 13. When evidence points to foul play, Willa begins asking dangerous questions to the wrong kind of people, soon discovering Ruby had more than her share of enemies who might want her dead. Willa reconnects with her childhood best friend Tenny and together the two women delve into their memories to unravel the mystery surrounding Ruby's death, not realizing that her mother's killers may soon be after them.
The Breakline is supported by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts and was one of 12 projects selected for Venice Biennale Cinema College, CINE QUA NON and the IRIS Writer's Lab sponsored by New York Women in Film & Television, Oprah Winfrey and Meryl Streep.
spurlock sisters
One of the strongest memories from our childhood in West Virginia is of listening to coal trains at all hours of the day and night. Train tracks divided our town in half, and the trains’ melancholy whistle was part of daily life. Every weekend my sister and I scraped together our allowance to go to the movies, and we had to cross under the train tracks to get there. The pedestrian passageway was dank and sinister, but we had to brave it. We raced under and back into the daylight as fast as we could and usually arrived at the theater with only minutes to spare.
In my memory it was always summer, and we were always running from the heat of midday into the darkness under the 8th Street Viaduct. It was a fitting ritual to get to our favorite theater, the Keith Albee— a faded ’20’s movie palace with heavily gilded ceilings, dusty velvet curtains, and louche red carpeting. Gold ropes lined the stairs to the cavernous ladies lounge in the basement, which was filled with dusty abandoned parlor furniture and elaborately tiled floors. Matinees were never crowded, and the theater was a cool, private respite from the everyday world.
Kim and I saw every movie playing. Nobody paid much attention to PG or R ratings in those days. When I was twelve, we happened to go see a movie called Blood Simple. In my memory we sat alone in the theater, heads resting side by side against the worn padding of the seats, and soaked in the images: a twirling ceiling fan, a bloody knife, and despair etched on every plane of Frances McDormand’s beautiful face. And when we saw the names of Joel and Ethan Coen on the big screen, Kim told me that one day we would do the same thing. That was the kernel of the idea for the Spurlock Sisters Magic Movie Team.
And so that’s us—Rednecks, Amerasians, Cinephiles and Goofballs.
PRESS
FILmmaker magazine:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
“You are cordially invited to the first installment of Film Fatales — a monthly get together of amazingly talented female filmmakers,” began the email I received from Leah Meyerhoff soon after I moved to New York. “We are reaching out to you because you have written or directed a feature film and we hope to share in each other’s talent, stories and laughter."
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FILmmaker magazine:
So I was thinking Don’t Look Now, but my sis had Scooby Doo on her mind as we drifted through the eerie fog on Venice’s Grand Canal. We were headed towards San Zaccaria, where we would catch a boat for the last leg of our journey to San Servolo island.
Mai and I met up in Frankfurt — she from L.A. and I from Brooklyn — to fly together into Venice for the Biennale College Cinema, where we would develop and pitch our feature film A Case of the Dismals. The fog thickened as we boarded the waterbus to the island. Any thoughts of Nicolas Roeg and Shaggy dissolved in our minds as San Servolo emerged from the mist like a mirage. My first thought? Welcome to Shutter Island.
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HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
Meryl Streep, Oprah Winfrey-Funded Writers Lab Selects Projects
A dozen screenplays have been selected for the program, sponsored by New York Women in Film and Television and IRIS.
Twelve projects have been selected to participate in The Writers Lab, produced by New York Women in Film and Television and IRIS, an organization that promotes female voices in fictional film.
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Indiewire:
The Hustle and Homesickness of Being an Artist of Color
It’s hard to make it in the city, not least in the world of entertainment. Our two July picks for web seriesboth feature struggling artists trying to succeed. The Spurlock sisters’ satirical “Livin’ the Dream” follows NYU film school graduate Kit Scanlon in her battle to get her first feature into production. With “Polyglot,” another sister duo, Rwandan-German Amelia Umuhire and Amanda Mukasonga, have created a series following young international artists of color trying to find their place in Berlin.
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Indiewire:
August 2015’s Women-Centric VOD & Web Series Picks
Inspired by their own experiences working within a predominantly male entertainment industry, the Spurlock sisters created “Livin’ The Dream,”
a web series that follows colorful Kit Scanlon (Laura Campbell), a 30-something woman desperately trying to make it as a filmmaker.
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New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) and IRIS have selected the participants of its third Writers Lab for Women Screenwriters over 40. Sponsored by Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey, the Lab is a four-day intensive script development retreat to be held in September in the Connecticut River Valley.
At the Lab, the selected writers will be mentored by film execs like “Deidra & Laney Rob a Train” producer Susan Cartsonis, “Precious” producer Lisa Cortés, “Equity” screenwriter Amy Fox, and “Strange Weather” producer Caroline Kaplan. The Lab will consist of one-on-one discussions between mentors and writers as well as panel conversations where everyone will meet to discuss themes and concepts.
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women in hollywood:
Writers Lab for Women Screenwriters Over 40 Announces 2017 Participants
