Love’s Baby Soft
VICKI SPEEGLE
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LOGLINE
A quirky 12-year-old desperate to grow up learns how tough it truly is when her world collides with her super cool 16-year-old babysitter.
SYNOPSIS
Dolores is a scrawny 12-year-old with the pluck of a 40-year-old mud wrestler. She lives with her single Mom in 70s suburbia, and she thinks she’s got the low-down on being grown-up. After all, Mom put her in charge of watching her bratty little brother. With best friend Teresa, Dolores fantasizes about sex, womanhood, work...and Freddie Prinze.
But Dolores’s world is turned upside down when Mom hires 16-year-old Cleo to babysit. Suddenly, Dolores isn’t so in charge. And there’s an even bigger problem. She really, really likes Cleo. Yep, in spite of everything inside screaming at her to protest, Dolores falls for the enemy invader. I mean, Cleo’s super sexy and just so darn cool! She talks with Dolores about boys and dating. Teaches her to disco dance. Cleo is everything Dolores longs to be, and the two begin to form a bond. But Dolores sees only what she wants to see—Cleo’s self-confidence and 16-year-old curves.She completely misses the self-doubt and uncertainty. Then Cleo invites Dolores to the drive-in with her boyfriend and little cousin. Wild with excitement, Dolores has Teresa help her dress for what she sees as the most important night of her life—her very first date. Prancing behind Cleo to the car with her big hair and blue eyeshadow, Dolores is bursting with anticipation. But she's soon smacked in the face by the bitter realization that Cleo doesn’t see her as an equal, and she must come to terms with the one thing she never wanted to see: she might be trying to grow up too fast.
Love’s Baby Soft is a dance between an awkward girl grasping for adulthood, and a cynical teen struggling through womanhood. Together they learn how tough growing up truly is.
To learn more about the film’s production company, Small Media Extra Large.
Vicki Speegle . Writer & Producer
Vicki Speegle's script Loved Ones was a finalist for the Stowe Story Lab Tangerine Entertainment Fellowship. It was in development at Amazon Studios and came oh so close to winning Best Screenplay of the Year there. Vicki grew up the daughter of a gay pastor in Akron, Ohio, and she’s worked an odd mix of jobs to support her writing, including 4 years in the U.S. Navy tracking submarines and a brief bout as the world’s worst waitress. A writer, film fanatic, and ice cream addict, Vicki earned her BFA in Film from NYU. She recently produced and edited a documentary about her mother’s struggle with faith in the wake of Alzheimer’s, In the Night I Remember Your Name, featuring Academy Award winner Marcia Gay Harden. The film was a finalist for the ScreenCraft Film Fund. Vicki’s credits include some really rhythmic radio scripts for jazz great Wynton Marsalis, and her work has placed in the finals of the Sundance Screenplay Lab, Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope.com (2nd Place), Bluecat (top 5), and Slamdance. When she can't make enough as a writer to buy ice cream, she works as a web producer and she recently helped Carnegie Hall launch their new site.
Stacie Capone . Producer & “Janice”
Stacie Capone is an actress and producer based in Los Angeles. Her producing credits include award-winning films, numerous commercials, short films, television, and web series. Clients include Sesame Street, TED, Nickelodeon and Facebook. As an actress, she was recently pinned for a new Netflix series and played the mom of one of the leads on Chicken Girls, a much beloved tween series on Brat TV. She is currently attached to two features, Pink Mist and The Spirit of Detroit (an Academy Nicholl Semi-Finalist) slated to film next year. Stacie takes pride in producing projects that are not only efficient and on-budget, but also a wonderful place to work and create. Like an expert hostess, she sets the table for a flawless production, and creates space for creatives and crew to be themselves and do their best work. Stacie is the founder of the FilmmakeHers, a monthly salon for female-identifying creators of film, television, and digital content with chapters in New York and Los Angeles. She is co-owner of the creative & production company Small Media Extra Large.
Sophia Eptamenitis . Producer
Sophia Eptamenitis, writer/producer/director, has penned eight feature scripts, with her latest adventure drama, The Oracle, currently in development at Baxter Films. Her New Jersey-based comedy series What Exit? can be seen on Amazon Prime and Vimeo On Demand. Her short film Invincible Summer, a drama about a cancer survivor, was an official selection at the Garden State Film Festival, New Hope Film Festival, and Wonder of Women Film Festival. Sophia currently works as a member of studio staff at Fox News Media in New York City and is in pre-production on a number of projects. Her latest co-written script Dark Shark is in development with Brilliant Pictures, based in London.
Lanie Zipoy . Director
Lanie Zipoy is a Memphis-born, Brooklyn-based director and producer. Her feature film directorial debut The Subject, starring Jason Biggs and Emmy nominee Aunjanue Ellis, has won top honors at nine festivals, including the Stony Brook Film Festival, Catalina Film Festival, Lighthouse International Film Festival, and Milan International Film Festival of World Cinema. Lanie received the Mira Nair Rising Female Filmmaker Award from the Harlem International Film Festival and Best Director Awards from the Newark International Film Festival and the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. Lanie directed the short film Kid Sister as well as the play, which starred Zazie Beetz (Joker, Atlanta) and Dominique Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah, The Deuce) in their first roles. Her short film 17 Things I Wish I Could Tell You Since You Died premiered at MINIFest in spring 2020. She has produced indie narrative and documentary features. Lanie is a Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the 2012-2014 Lab at WP Theater, NYC. She has written for The Huffington Post. Her novel Me and the Moon was one of six finalists for The Write Stuff through MTV Books/Simon & Schuster. With comedy group Recent Cutbacks, she recently produced Master Lecture Series: History of the 3rd Robot War, an Audible Original. Lanie is a member of Film Fatales, New York Women in Film & Television, Filmshop, and The FilmmakeHers.
Alexa Swinton . “Dolores”
Alexa Swinton is an American actress, singer, and writer. She is known for her roles in television, film, and theater. Most recently, Alexa was part of the cast in M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming thriller Old, slated to be released in July 2021. Alexa starred as Piper in the ABC prime-time series Emergence. She also acts opposite Paul Giamatti and Maggie Siff in Showtime’s Billions as Eva Rhoades. Alexa began her professional acting career performing at age three in Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament where she performed opposite Paul Giamatti and Elaine Stritch. Alexa was born in New York City and lives in New Jersey.
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