Wasteland is a story about unlikely people rescuing each other. Two girls are trying to “grow up” in LA, where no one is a grownup or has a real job. Other girls are getting jobs, getting married or trying to get famous. Tilly and Georgia are just figuring out who they are after being apart while Georgia was in Boyfriend Land. Neither feels like herself without the other. Tilly rescues Georgia from an abusive relationship and they are forced to confront their own. Now Georgia has to figure out where to live and how to live in Los Angeles, post breakup. Tilly thinks she’s got it all figured it out. (Spoiler alert: she hasn’t). The story takes place over the course of one night. But it can be hard to tell time in LA; a night can feel like a year, and six years can feel like one. In this one night, Tilly drags Georgia back into her life and gives her a very personal tour of Los Angeles, its people and herself.
Wasteland is a dark fairytale of sorts, in which the princesses are tough girls who rescue themselves and the knights in shining armor are door guys and bartenders and tattooed neighbors down the block.
I wrote this film after almost seven years of living in LA. As a pretty little actress, I went out for Cute Funny Friend or Funny Office Girl. Now I go out for Young Mom. I love my job as an actress. But I longed to play real women: people like me. Girls who don’t want to be looked at, or rescued or sexualized. I wanted to see these women and be these women. So I wrote this story about girls who are their own heroes and the unlikely bonds they form with people in Los Angeles, a city whose diversity is unescapable.
Sisterhood is powerful. The heart of this film is Family. Tilly is searching for home and family and she finds it in her sister Georgia. She finds it in the door guy at the grungy dive bar in Hollywood, the gangbanger neighbors down the street who offer her safety and respite from the outside world. People come to Los Angeles and find their family, unlikely and mismatched as it may be. Tilly and Georgia are each others’ home and family and they make sense of the messed up world together. This is their (late) coming of age story.
Website: https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/wasteland#story
Film/Trailer: https://www.elizabethrian.com/current-projects
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