Today we’d like to introduce you to Lily Af Geijerstam-Lindberg.
Lily, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My background is based in theater. As a very introverted kid, my mom thought that acting classes in high school would be the thing to push me out of my shell. So I memorized monologues, and watched speeches on technique from Uta Hagen and Sanford Meisner, and found that I made a crummy actor. But I loved the art of storytelling.
So, I branched out into shop classes, building sets and hunting for the part of this art form that was calling to me. I found it in my last semester at Dickinson College. It was the fall semester of my sophomore year (just before I transferred to CUA) when I ended up simultaneously taking a screenwriting and a directing for the stage class. Like most people, the first full length feature I wrote was an absolute mess, but it got me to fall in love with screenwriting.
In that same way, I fell in love with directing. The barebones production of The Actor’s Nightmare that I also costumed and set designed for remains one of my favorite projects that I have worked on. But directing requires people outside of yourself in ways that writing often does not, which can be hard mid worldwide pandemic. So, for a time, it fell to the wayside.
Post college, I applied to and was rejected from Emerson‘s screenwriting program. Heartbroken, I followed a few friends down to Florida to work at Walt Disney World through the Disney College program. Those seven months in the Florida humidity turned into a crash course in how to be extroverted. So, when I reapplied to and was accepted into Emerson in late 2022, I was ready to network, make connections, and get art made.
This is where I met my good friend and collaborator, Jack-Henry. Within a month of our graduation, he had a script and a plan to get his short film made. I was happy to help, and found myself in the same positions that I had filled for The Actor’s Nightmare all those years before: costume designer, producer, set designer, and director. It was everything that I had been missing.
Now, a year plus out from this short film’s shoot, we find ourselves in the midst of marketing the film just enough to garner interest without disqualifying it from the festival circuit. It’s a hell of a balance, but one that is made easy by virtue of doing it with a friend.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Nothing that is collaborative is going to go perfectly well, and you shouldn’t want it to. Disagreements and discussions are healthy, they allow us to broaden our understanding of one another. So even though there have been struggles and obstacles along the way, both in getting our short made and in breaking into the industry, they are a part of the process. They help us grow.
That being said, on our second day of shooting our short, our lunch catering didn’t show up and we had to stymy a minor revolt with a pizza run.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Everything I create has a touch of absurdity to it. I think in order to create you have to accept that life is weird and full of coincidences. One of the first things I directed was a surreal, absurd piece, and it felt strangely easy to put together. When there’s only the suggestion of a plot, actors are able to give themselves over to their characters without worrying about fitting their portrayals into what they think the script is asking for.
I’m not writing Rhinoceros or Endgame, but I like to think that there’s a little bit of absurdity in everything I write or direct.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love the public transit system in LA! Everything I’d heard about it before I moved here was so so negative, but it is surprisingly robust for a car city.
The thing I dislike about LA is the thing I dislike about every city. It can be really lonely (especially if you move here without a job or a large friend group).
Contact Info:
- Instagram: lily_the_swede
- Other: the_boy_in_blue_short_film
