Madeline got the part! She’s going to play the lead in a theater piece! Except the lead wears sweatpants like Madeline’s. And has a cat like Madeline’s. And is holding a steaming hot iron next to her mother’s face – like Madeline is.
Madeline (newcomer Helena Howard) has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theater troupe. When the workshop's ambitious director (Molly Parker) pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother (Miranda July) into their collective art, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. The resulting battle between imagination and appropriation rips out of the rehearsal space and through all three women’s lives.
Writer/director Josephine Decker has long been an independent filmmaker to admire, utilizing a welcome expressionistic approach that imbues her subjects with a vibrant sense of urgency. Anchored by a virtuoso performance from newcomer Helena Howard, whose powerful screen presence commands attention, Decker’s film displays a rare sensitivity for capturing the messy struggles of discovering a sense of one's self that defies easy narrative categorization.
Molly Parker - Evangeline
Molly Parker is best known for her starring role as “Alma Garrett” in David Milch’s acclaimed HBO series DEADWOOD, and for playing “Jackie Sharp” in HOUSE OF CARDS opposite Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright for Netflix. In other recent television, she starred in SWINGTOWN on CBS and THE FIRM on NBC. Memorable characters also include “Lisa Marshall” on DEXTER for Showtime and “Rabbi Ari” on SIX FEET UNDER for HBO. Molly made her feature film debut in Lynne Stopkewich's KISSED, for which she received a Genie Award for Best Actress. Other features include Katja von Garnier’s IRON JAWED ANGELS opposite Hillary Swank and Angelica Huston and Philip Kaufman’s HEMINGWAY AND GELHORN opposite Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, both for HBO Films; John Hillcoat’s THE ROAD opposite Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron; Allen Coulter’s HOLLYWOODLAND opposite Adrien Brody; and Neil LaBute's THE WICKER MAN, opposite Nicolas Cage. She has starred in numerous independent films, including WHO LOVES THE SUN opposite Lukas Haas and Adam Scott, for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Beverly Hills Film Festival; Julia Dyer’s THE PLAYROOM which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival; OLIVER SHERMAN opposite Garrett Dillahunt and Donal Logue; Bruce Macdonald’s TRIGGER (Genie Award nomination); Gillies MacKinnon's PURE; Wayne Wang’s CENTER OF THE WORLD opposite Peter Sarsgaard for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award; Istvan Szabo’s SUNSHINE opposite Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz; Keith Gordon's WAKING THE DEAD opposite Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly; Menno Meyjes’ MAX opposite John Cusack; Michael Winterbottom’s WONDERLAND; Wiebke von Carolsfeld's MARION BRIDGE for which she won the Genie Award winner for Best Supporting Actress; Paul Gross’s MEN WITH BROOMS and Bruce Sweeney’s LAST WEDDING, for which she won a Genie Award; Jeremy Podeswa's THE FIVE SENSES opposite Mary Louise-Parker; Sturla Gunnarson’s RARE BIRDS opposite William Hurt; her second film with Lynn Stopkewich, SUSPICIOUS RIVER which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and Rodrigo Garcia’s NINE LIVES.
She was most recently seen in the acclaimed Amazon original series GOLIATH, from David E. Kelly, Errol Morris’s acclaimed genre-bending series WORMWOOD opposite Peter Sarsgaard for Netflix, Stephen King’s 1922 opposite Thomas Jane, and Josephine Decker’s MADELINE’S MADELINE, costarring opposite Miranda July, which premiered at Sundance this year. Upcoming, she will be seen in Netflix’s remake of the classic series LOST IN SPACE, playing the role of Maureen Robinson. Her directorial debut, the short film BIRD, starring Amanda Plummer, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival as well as the Vancouver and Calgary Film Festivals last year.
Miranda July - Regina
Miranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Her most recent book is The First Bad Man, a novel. July’s collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and has been published in twenty-three countries. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The New Yorker; It Chooses You was her first book of non-fiction. She wrote, directed, and starred in THE FUTURE and ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW—winner of the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. July’s participatory art works include the website Learning to Love You More (with artist Harrell Fletcher), Eleven Heavy Things (a sculpture garden created for the 2009 Venice Biennale), New Society (a performance), and Somebody (a messaging app created with Miu Miu). In 2017 she created an fully functioning interfaith charity shop inside the department store, Selfridges; a work presented by Artangel in London. Raised in Berkeley, California, July lives in Los Angeles.
and introducing Helena Howard - Madeline
Helena Howard (nineteen) is a native of New York City and has known she has wanted to be an actress since the age of three. She has attended performing arts programs where she has appeared in Grease (Rizzo), Metamorphoses (Alcyone), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Titania), The Sparrow (Emily Book), Anything Goes (Reno Sweeney), Elektra (Chorus member), The Children’s Hour (Martha), and Dutchman (Lula). Helena has won numerous recognitions and awards for her acting and met the director of MADELINE’S MADELINE, Josephine Decker, at a festival where Ms. Decker was judging. Since then, Helena, Josephine, and some of the actors in the film began workshopping ideas for the film. Two years later, it was time to put the ideas in front of the camera. Helena couldn't be more excited for the cast and crew; to see their hard work, collaboration, and artistry recognized and come to life! She hopes that everyone will take something away from this incredible piece.
Helena Howard - Madeline
Helena Howard (nineteen) is a native of New York City and has known she has wanted to be an actress since the age of three. She has attended performing arts programs where she has appeared in Grease (Rizzo), Metamorphoses (Alcyone), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Titania), The Sparrow (Emily Book), Anything Goes (Reno Sweeney), Elektra (Chorus member), The Children’s Hour (Martha), and Dutchman (Lula). Helena has won numerous recognitions and awards for her acting and met the director of MADELINE’S MADELINE, Josephine Decker, at a festival where Ms. Decker was judging. Since then, Helena, Josephine, and some of the actors in the film began workshopping ideas for the film. Two years later, it was time to put the ideas in front of the camera. Helena couldn't be more excited for the cast and crew; to see their hard work, collaboration, and artistry recognized and come to life! She hopes that everyone will take something away from this incredible piece.
Miranda July - Regina
Miranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Her most recent book is The First Bad Man, a novel. July’s collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and has been published in twenty-three countries. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The New Yorker; It Chooses You was her first book of non-fiction. She wrote, directed, and starred in THE FUTURE and ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW—winner of the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. July’s participatory art works include the website Learning to Love You More (with artist Harrell Fletcher), Eleven Heavy Things (a sculpture garden created for the 2009 Venice Biennale), New Society (a performance), and Somebody (a messaging app created with Miu Miu). In 2017 she created an fully functioning interfaith charity shop inside the department store, Selfridges; a work presented by Artangel in London. Raised in Berkeley, California, July lives in Los Angeles.
Molly Parker - Evangeline
Molly Parker is best known for her starring role as “Alma Garrett” in David Milch’s acclaimed HBO series DEADWOOD, and for playing “Jackie Sharp” in HOUSE OF CARDS opposite Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright for Netflix. In other recent television, she starred in SWINGTOWN on CBS and THE FIRM on NBC. Memorable characters also include “Lisa Marshall” on DEXTER for Showtime and “Rabbi Ari” on SIX FEET UNDER for HBO. Molly made her feature film debut in Lynne Stopkewich's KISSED, for which she received a Genie Award for Best Actress. Other features include Katja von Garnier’s IRON JAWED ANGELS opposite Hillary Swank and Angelica Huston and Philip Kaufman’s HEMINGWAY AND GELHORN opposite Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, both for HBO Films; John Hillcoat’s THE ROAD opposite Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron; Allen Coulter’s HOLLYWOODLAND opposite Adrien Brody; and Neil LaBute's THE WICKER MAN, opposite Nicolas Cage. She has starred in numerous independent films, including WHO LOVES THE SUN opposite Lukas Haas and Adam Scott, for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Beverly Hills Film Festival; Julia Dyer’s THE PLAYROOM which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival; OLIVER SHERMAN opposite Garrett Dillahunt and Donal Logue; Bruce Macdonald’s TRIGGER (Genie Award nomination); Gillies MacKinnon's PURE; Wayne Wang’s CENTER OF THE WORLD opposite Peter Sarsgaard for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award; Istvan Szabo’s SUNSHINE opposite Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz; Keith Gordon's WAKING THE DEAD opposite Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly; Menno Meyjes’ MAX opposite John Cusack; Michael Winterbottom’s WONDERLAND; Wiebke von Carolsfeld's MARION BRIDGE for which she won the Genie Award winner for Best Supporting Actress; Paul Gross’s MEN WITH BROOMS and Bruce Sweeney’s LAST WEDDING, for which she won a Genie Award; Jeremy Podeswa's THE FIVE SENSES opposite Mary Louise-Parker; Sturla Gunnarson’s RARE BIRDS opposite William Hurt; her second film with Lynn Stopkewich, SUSPICIOUS RIVER which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and Rodrigo Garcia’s NINE LIVES.
She was most recently seen in the acclaimed Amazon original series GOLIATH, from David E. Kelly, Errol Morris’s acclaimed genre-bending series WORMWOOD opposite Peter Sarsgaard for Netflix, Stephen King’s 1922 opposite Thomas Jane, and Josephine Decker’s MADELINE’S MADELINE, costarring opposite Miranda July, which premiered at Sundance this year. Upcoming, she will be seen in Netflix’s remake of the classic series LOST IN SPACE, playing the role of Maureen Robinson. Her directorial debut, the short film BIRD, starring Amanda Plummer, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival as well as the Vancouver and Calgary Film Festivals last year.
Josephine Decker - Writer/Director
Josephine Decker is part of Time Warner's 150 incubator, Sundance Institute's New Frontier Lab, and one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Decker was said to be ushering in a “new grammar of narrative” by The New Yorker. She premiered her first two narrative features at the Berlinale Forum 2014 to rave reviews. The films were listed #2 and #10 on The New Yorker’s Top Ten List of 2014, played about a hundred festivals around the world, won Sarasota Film Festival’s Independent Visions Award, Tangerine Entertainment’s prize for a rising female director, and many other awards.
Decker directed twenty-six short docs for the Museum of the City of New York and has directed content for United Way and other non-profits. She helped to produce documentaries for A&E and Discovery before moving into indie film with her feature documentary BI THE WAY (SXSW, MTV’s Logo, and Netflix, 2008) and was selected to make a short as part of feature film collective: unconscious (SXSW Competition 2016), which has received over 500,000 views as part of its innovative free release on BitTorrent and Vimeo. Her third narrative feature, starring Molly Parker and Miranda July, had its World Premiere at Sundance 2018 and its International Premiere at the Berlinale Forum 2018.
Last fall, she incubated a dance film at Princeton University with Butoh choreographer Vangeline and students. Interested in melding unconventional movement and narrative, she loves to teach and work through collaboration with existing communities. In her work, she has collaborated closely with the New York City Department of Sanitation, the East European Folklife Center, Pig Iron Theatre Company, the Center for Employment Opportunities, which supports men and women recently released from prison, and New York City after school programs. Decker spent a year in Pig Iron Theater’s Advanced Performance Training to study collaborative writing, and regularly leads sessions of the innovative residency program The School of Making Thinking. She had the honor of creating a Virtual Reality piece in residency at Wolf Kino in Berlin in spring 2017, and her VR work has been incubated at Sundance New Frontier Lab and Oculus’ DevLab.
Ashley Connor - Cinematographer
Ashley Connor is a New York-based director of photography. Her work on Josephine Decker's BUTTER ON THE LATCH and THOU WAST MILD AND LOVELY prompted New Yorker critic Richard Brody to name her, alongside Darius Khonji and Fabrice Aragno, as one of the year's best cinematographers. Her breadth of style can be seen in work as diverse as Dustin Guy Defa's PERSON TO PERSON (Sundance '17) and Adam Leon's TRAMPS (TIFF '16), as well as in popular music videos for artists including Jenny Lewis, Angel Olsen, and Maggie Rogers. She had two films premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Josephine Decker’s MADELINE’S MADELINE and Desiree Akhavan’s THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST.
Krista Parris - Producer
Krista Parris’s recent feature producing credits include Josephine Decker’s MADELINE’S MADELINE, starring Molly Parker, Miranda July, and newcomer Helena Howard, which debuted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and HUMAN AFFAIRS, Charlie Birns’s debut, starring Dominic Fumusa, Kerry Condon, and Julie Sokolowski, premiering at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival. She is currently producing a limited docuseries about Watergate directed by Charles Ferguson (INSIDE JOB) for A+E’s History Channel, scheduled to be broadcast later this year.
She frequently collaborates with writer/director Emily Carmichael (PACIFIC RIM: MAELSTROM) with whom she’s made two shorts, STRYKA, starring Aimee Mullins and Rupert Friend distributed via Condé Nast in 2016, and animated short THE ENCHANTED FOREST, released by The New Yorker last fall. She is developing features with Carmichael and DGA award-nominee Sasie Sealy. Part of Time Warner’s 150 incubator and a 2016 Trans Atlantic Partners producing fellow, she is based in New York City.
Elizabeth Rao - Producer
ELIZABETH RAO is a filmmaker based in New York. Rao’s first feature as a producer, MADELINE’S MADELINE, world premiered in 2018 at the Sundance Film Festival, and had its international premiere at Berlinale. She’s worked closely with Decker across various projects, and in 2014 and 2015, helped develop and oversee the ensemble cast whose devised-improvisation rehearsals form the basis of MADELINE’S MADELINE. Elizabeth is also an editor whose credits include lead editing SXSW Special Jury Award-Winner MAINELAND, as well as co-editing MADELINE’S MADELINE. Contemporaneous with producing and editing, Elizabeth has worked for four seasons on the programming team at Tribeca Film Festival. She got her start on Paramount’s Chinese remake of Nancy Meyers’ WHAT WOMEN WANT, and has also worked with documentary legend Albert Maysles, associate producing his long-awaited feature film about cross-country train travel, IN TRANSIT. She escaped a literature B.A. at Yale University to study film with surrealists at FAMU film school in Prague, Czech Republic.