‘Thanks to Her’
“That’s why I want this to be made, for the people who literally can’t be themselves.”
Sam Orlowski
Pitt alums turning YouTube short film into full-length movie
Ashort film garnering more than 600,000 views on YouTube is a solid consolation prize for having to scale down a project’s initial lofty ambitions. It was a big concession at the time for former University of Pittsburgh student Sam Orlowski, 24, of Canonsburg, who in fall 2018 had written a feature-length movie script for her senior capstone project. She eventually realized the movie in her head would have to wait and instead went on to write, edit and co-direct the short film “Thanks to Her,” a drama about two teens bonding as one explores her sexuality.
“A lot of people have reached out and said, ‘This meant a lot to me to hear this right now,’” Orlowski said regarding the hundreds of YouTube comments.
She shot it in spring 2019, finished editing last summer and posted the final product on YouTube in September. Since then, it has grown to the point that she and her team are now planning to shoot the full version of “Thanks to Her.”
There will be a free virtual screening of the 23-minute “Thanks to Her” at 6:30 p.m. Thursday hosted by The Jewish Association on Aging that will also include a Q&A with the cast and crew. Register at www.jaapgh.org/events.
The “Thanks to Her” creative team — which includes fellow Pitt graduates Sam McCoy, 24, of Richmond, Va., and Hayley Ulmer, 25, of Lansdale, Pa. — is trying to raise $35,000. They hope to create a featurelength production this summer in Pittsburgh through donors, grants and a Kickstarter campaign running through March 11 that has already raised more than $11,000.
Some people have told them that they want to donate but are afraid doing so will reveal to their families that they are gay, according to Orlowski.
“That’s why I want this to be made, for the people who literally can’t be themselves,” she said.
“Thanks to Her” follows Millie (AJ Molder, 20, of Shadyside) and Andy (Julia De Avilez Rocha, 24, of Edison, N.J.) as an altercation and subsequent community-service sentence create an unexpected opportunity for Millie to grapple with a core pillar of her identity.
Orlowski, a member of the LGBT community, said that she has generally been
disappointed by the depiction of these kinds of stories in popular culture and wanted to make a film that does justice to how difficult it can be to live one’s truth.
“It’s a lot of me just being part of this community online and pulling in what people like to see and the best way to handle certain things so it comes off as genuine and is as sensitive as possible,” she said.
Pittsburghers may recognize filming locations like the Schenley Oval Sportsplex in Squirrel Hill or The Residence at Weinberg Village, a retirement home also in Squirrel Hill.
Ulmer, the project’s assistant director and a producer on the feature-length adaptation, works in the Pittsburgh film industry and talked up all the local talent that made “Thanks to Her.”
“I know there are people here who can make beautiful films,” she said. “What was so cool about this was that everyone involved was either from Pittsburgh or living here and had a love of the city. It was proof that we could make this kind of project in our hometown.”
A fully realized “Thanks to Her” would include more Pittsburgh locales, extra time spent exploring Andy and Millie’s relationships with each other and their families, a soccer game or two, and more screen time with Pepper and Jade, elderly lesbians whom Millie and Andy bond with during their mandated service.
The COVID-19 pandemic only mildly affected the original film’s post-production process. McCoy, the film’s codirector, thinks everything people been through over the past year adds an extra layer of significance.
“It’s very hard to find a community right now,” she said. “A film that brings together so many themes like this, it’s important now more than ever.”
Orlowski is excited to see her dream of a full-length film come closer to fruition.
“Pittsburgh deserves to have a locally made film about a very important, representative topic, made by local people that care about giving a voice to marginalized people and also giving a voice to Pittsburgh.”