The Story

《The Last Lesbian》is a road trip romantic comedy, with Sci-fi and time travel elements. In 2318, the last lesbian on earth, Susannah, time travels back to 2018 to find a girl, Bella, who can save the world’s homosexual population. Susannah has to stop Bella from going to the most important event in her life. When Bella tries to get rid of Susannah, she hides in Bella's trunk and they start a funny but romantic trip.

Director's Statement 

After making suspense films and family dramas in Dodge, I feel comedy is one genre I’d really like to tackle. My professor encouraged me to go for it, he said, not all filmmakers can make comedy, don’t waste your talent.

I’ve been working on this story for a year, and after 20 drafts it finally came through. Since November 2017, we started location scouting, in the past 3 month, we’ve been to Death Valley National Park, Lancaster, Newport Beach, Banning, Joshua Tree National Park, etc. Finally, we picked 8 locations for our films. 

Our casting went well during December and January, and we’ll start shooting on Feb 9th. It will be a ten day production with post production finished by May. Then we’ll submit it to film festivals all over the world.

Why We Need Your Help

It not only takes a village to make a film, but also a lot of money. Your contributions will go directly to paying our actors, the equipments rental, lighting, hair and makeup artists, music composer, costumes, props, food for our cast and crew, lodging for the cast, transportation, insurance, truck rentals, only to name a few. In order for this film to come to life, all of these need to be paid for. Our budget is over 50,000. This is where we need your help.

Your contributions will not go unnoticed! Your names will be in the film's end credits as our backers, and please check out the perks and items we've prepared for our donators, listed on the right of the page.

Other Ways You Can Help

Any form of contribution is greatly appreciated, if you love our story but are not able to donate; there are many ways you can help without cash:

Word of mouth always help - Tell your friends, your classmates, parents, co-workers, etc. about our project (Text, email, chat in person)

Social media - Please share this on every social media app on your electronic devices. (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc)

The Team

Jingyu "Olivia" Liu

Writer/Director

Jingyu “Olivia” Liu is an MFA student at Chapman University majoring in directing. She has been passionate about filmmaking ever since she was a child, however, growing up in a small town in China, she never had the opportunity to pursue it as a career. Unfortunately, the only “right path” for a girl like her is to have a safe and stable job. After graduating from one of the best Engineering schools in China, Olivia earned her first Master’s degree in the US and then became an engineer. 

However, everyday she felt a calling for her true passion: story telling. Olivia built up the courage to chase the dream that never faded throughout her life, despite little formal education in film, and started over at the age of 30 to pursue that passion. After a year of preparation, she impressed school admissions boards through her talent and her ability to learn quickly. She was accepted into a top film school-Chapman University. Her first short film “Shallow Grave” was selected at a number of film festivals, and screened at Golden Reel Award’s showcase for nominated student films. Her second film “The Somnium” won Best Student Film in the LA Shorts Awards, received Honorable Mention Best Director in the Los Angeles Film Awards, and was selected in Cannes Short Film Corner and Toronto Short Film Festival.

Producer: Angenica Eusebio

Angenica Eusebio is an MFA Film and Television Producing candidate. Within one year of the program she has produced three short films. Including her three films, she has worked on a total of eleven sets which include roles as a production assistant, unit production manager, and in the art department. Prior to attending Chapman University, she studied Radio/TV/Film at Cal State Fullerton. She enjoys sleeping, getting to know people by asking ridiculous questions, and eating the most delicious food.

Director of Photography: Zichen "Wolf" Tang

Wolf Tang is a problem solver, a reliable collaborator and a multi-disciplinary filmmaker who specializes in telling stories through images. He taught himself visual effects during high school and later received his BA degree in Digital Media Art at Communication University of China. During undergraduate life, he gathered extensive practical experience in cinematography, editing and VFX design. 

He designed the Commercial video for “China Internet Security Conference” in 2013, the promo video for OPPO Find5 launch event, and motion graphic web series for Tencent News. He is now pursuing his MFA degree majoring in Cinematography at Chapman University. Recently his work The Somnium won “Best Cinematography” in he 2017/Los Angeles Film Awards and “Best Student Film” in LA Shorts Awards.

Editor： Xiaoxi Yang

Xiaoxi Yang, graduated from University of Kansas with BA degree in Film Studies. During her undergraduate life, she gathered extensive practical experience in editing by cutting films and music videos.  She is a current student at Chapman University pursuing an MFA degree in film production with an editing emphasis. 

Production Designer: Michael Aranda 

Michael Aranda is a Southern California native, and he knew from an early age he wanted to be a storyteller. Michael initially pursued animation and earned his BFA from Laguna College of Art + Design in sunny Laguna Beach. He learned the animation process and pipeline, and how to build a story from the ground up. After earning his Bachelor’s degree Michael taught graphic design and multimedia classes at a community college and decided to apply for Graduate school studying live action filmmaking to diversify his resume. Michael was soon accepted to Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University, where he studies Production Design for film.

Sound Designer：Peiqi Duan

Peiqi Duan, born and raised in Shanghai, China, is a film sound design emphasized graduate student in Chapman University - Dodge College. She has studied film sound in Beijing since 2011. She won the first-class scholarship in her undergraduate school, Beijing Film Academy, and decided to get further education and training in the US. She has been nominated for the 64th Golden Reels Award - Verna Fields Award for students. In addition, many films that she has been involved with have won several film awards, including Black Magic - DGA Student Film Award, Shop of Eternal Life - DGA Student Film Award, Father’s Studio - China Pingyao International Photography Festival. Besides, she has tons of work experiences in film sound. As a sound designer and sound mixer, she worked on many commercials and Chinese feature films, such as he animated film Island of Kirin, Iqiyi, feature film Youth and Evil Beauty 2. She hopes she can have more chances to design different kinds of film sounds in her future career.

Composer: Shirley Song 

Shirley Song is an Australian Chinese film composer from Sydney who now resides in LA.  She has since worked closely for Academy award winning film composers, Jeff and Mychael Danna (The Good Dinosaur, Storks, Life of Pi…) on projects such as the Netflix mini series. “Alias Grace” and the Golden Globe nominated feature animation film, “The Breadwinner,” produced by Angelina Jolie.

Graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music's Bachelor of Music (Composition) degree, and the Film Scoring diploma from Berklee College of Music, her most recent composition credits include the comedy feature film, "Freelancers Anonymous," directed by Sonia Sebastian, the documentary “Mandrills: A Second Chance” for the Jane Goodall Institute, “Human Nature”, a collaborative short film between Giorgio Armani and Emerson College that was featured at last years 2017 SXSW festival.