“

An afterparty, an apartment of ​queers, and a hallway of ​transformation leads Shy to ​discover an unlikely setting for ​feeling truly seen.

Director

intent

Little daddy

Little Daddy is a deeply personal story for me. It delves into a journey of ​gender identity and a profound reckoning with my own lifelong sensation of ​being not a girl but also not a boy. The genesis of this project stems from a ​search for belonging, and the spaces along the way that supported my own ​transformation.

The film begins after an electric night of clubbing. More specifically it begins ​in a shower and ends in an orgy. “Little Daddy” is a tender yet explicit ​narrative interwoven with moments of hard core and soft care. It portrays a ​nuanced world of gender queer individuals. It follows Shy and their close-knit ​group of friends through a day of play, transformation, and self-discovery, ​highlighting moments of desire, connection, and community within an ​architectural and emotional space of an afterparty. The narrative unfolds in ​an apartment replete with sex drugs and lingering conversations. The confines ​of the space serves as a map of rooms where Shy’s identity can be explored. ​It is here, in the intimate and vulnerable setting, that I delve into the ​transformative power of feeling seen.

The idea of the script emerged from the belief that something intensely ​personal can, paradoxically, become universally relatable. Drawing from the ​concrete details of my own life and the shared experiences of the ​genderqueer and trans community around me, the script carries an ​authenticity and a determination to reflect both the hardships and ​subsequent joy in the looking for and finding of acceptance.

aesthetic

little daddy

All images/film clips on this site are a result from a staged after party ​filmed on January 13th in Berlin as a form of research, to cast and ​familiarize the participants with the intentions of this project. The test ​shoot allowed the Cinematographer and I to develop a visual language. ​Together we are exploring how to structure the upcoming film shoot with a ​hybrid approach of scripted scenes combined with constructed situations. ​I explored how to run a set that feels true to a party, how to navigate ​nudity, the delicate nature of directorial authority, and to hear reactions ​and responses from everyone involved.

Research shoot from 13 January 2023

Play, at the heart of “Little Daddy,” is the ​catalyst for unpredictability, spontaneity, and ​creativity. It’s a shamelessly generous force ​that enlivens and expands unexplored ​potentials. My work explores play as a central ​concept. Play is an undervalued and critical ​element of human experiences into ​adulthood. Play is inextricable from ​vulnerability. Fiction can be a place to ​explore difficult emotional spaces. I want to ​emphasize play and vulnerability as central to ​human experience.

Nudity in “Little Daddy” is not merely a form ​of exposure; it’s a symbol of comfort and ​sharing. It’s an act of shedding layers, both ​literally and metaphorically, as a testament ​to self-acceptance and vulnerability. Inside ​this apartment, nudity becomes a powerful ​medium for forging trust and connection.

“

Little Daddy continues to build on a body of work that lies ​at the intersection of art, gender politics and film. After a ​successful carreer as a studio and performance artist, Its ​a delight to experience Poodle’s vibrant, playful, and ​unique aesthetic in filmmaking.

This project is of specific relevance today, when members ​of the queer and trans community are under intense ​scrutiny. Poodle brings to the table first hand access and ​insight in the milieu of ex-pat and immigrant queer life.”

– Filmmaker and film programmer, Anouk De Clercq

Film and research references

Climax

2018

the beast in the jungle

2023

Key

characters

Little daddy

SHY (26)

mikel (28)

Mikel is a non assuming ​nonbinary transmasc clad in a ​basic sweatshirt and shorts. Shy ​is a timid queerdo, new to the ​world of clubbing. Mikel ​recognises a similar journey in ​Shy. They takes Shy under their ​wing, providing a safe space for ​Shy to explore their gender and ​new forms of masculinity.

tinker ​(34)

Hermes ​(39)

Tinker is a boyount trans girl. ​Hermes a sissy gay man with a ​flair for silk. The two end up ​befriending Shy at the after party ​with open hearts.

“

Femmunism :

A collective state emerging out of a constructed ​situation from which masculinity that expresses ​itself as domination is subtracted as technically ​obsolete.

It has no necessary ongoingness, no memory,

no relation to desired futures, and appears only ​momentarily. Where girls* and their familiers get ​their rave on, where ravespace, enlustment, and

xeno-euphoria can happen among them.”

wark, tans activist & author of Raving

visual ​concept

little daddy

The visual style of Little Daddy is one of hybridity. I intend to weave a documentary-like approach with ​scripted scenes, staged tableaus, and choreographed scenes. I plan to achieve this by creating an entire world ​for the cast and crew to inhabit together. I want to construct an environment and shooting situation that ​oscillates between observation and staging, between gritty realness and playful artifice.

The intention is to offer a style of embodied filmmaking that evokes a visceral experience as the characters ​travel through the milieu of a queer afterparty. It will reflect the sideways direction of queer time, drug time, ​and club time, and embody the textures, sounds, colors, smells, spaces, feelings, conversations and ​encounters within. The script itself will give space for the cultural and linguistic diversity of the queers from ​around the world who have sought shelter in the space of one city, in one apartment.

The scripted segments will be shot in a naturalistic style and follow the point of view of the main character ​SHY. In these sections, I prefer to shoot long sequences where the actors can truly be themselves and not a ​reduced caricature of queerness.

The staged sections will give an honest yet magical glimpse into queer kink, dance styles, and fantasy. It ​will be filmed as stylized tableau or paused recreations that reflect the love of dress-up, hyper play, and ​creative joy in the queer party scene. To give agency to perversity, pleasure, and performativity which ​frequently appears misrepresented or cutified in mainstream culture.

style

The visual style of Little Daddy is one of hybridity. I intend to weave a documentary-like approach with ​scripted scenes, staged tableaus, and choreographed scenes. I plan to achieve this by creating an entire world ​for the cast and crew to inhabit together. I want to construct an environment and shooting situation that ​oscillates between observation and staging, between gritty realness and playful artifice.

The intention is to offer a style of embodied filmmaking that evokes a visceral experience as the characters ​travel through the milieu of a queer afterparty. It will reflect the sideways direction of drug time, queer time, ​and club time, and embody the textures, sounds, colors, smells, spaces, feelings, conversations and ​encounters within.

The scripted segments will be shot in a naturalistic style and follow the point of view of the main character ​SHY. In these sections, I prefer to shoot long sequences where the actors can truly be themselves and not a ​reduced caricature of queerness.

The staged sections will give an honest yet magical glimpse into queer kink, dance styles, and fantasy. It ​will be filmed as stylized tableau or paused recreations that reflect the love of dress-up, hyper play, and ​creative joy in the expat queer scene. To give agency to perversity, pleasure, and performativity which ​frequently appears misrepresented or cutified in mainstream culture.

structure

Hallway as architecture of transformation

“

Queer lives do not progress in the ​same way as non-queer lives; ​experiences of queer people like ​coming out, or transitioning for trans ​people, warp time which prevents ​life developing in a linear way.

– Halberstam, academic and trans activist

crew

little daddy

I’ve had the luxury of crewing a primarily sapphic, lesbian, ​trans and nonbinary collaborators. I believe the emotional ​tone of a set has a direct impact on the work being made. ​The set itself functions best when it is a living thing, a ​symbiotic and emotionally generous community.

Nadja Krueger

she/her ​Cinematographer

Nominated for the National ​Competition for Women Directors ​of Photography at International ​Women’s Film Festival Cologne, ​Germany 2016. Berlinale Talent ​in Cinematography, 2020.

Franziska zahl

She/her

Production ​manager

Franziska is a Berlin based

project manager, exhibition ​and event producer, DJ and ​pole performer under the ​name FRZNTE

Kevin Terell

they/them

Film Score ​Composer

Currently doing a DMA as ​performer-composer at ​CalArts. Kevin is a ​classically trained pianist, ​and a Los Angeles DJ.

cory ​Cronenwett

he/him

Film Editor

Cory Cronenwett’s films ​transport viewers into ​dreamlike realms in ​collaboration with trans ​and gender non conforming ​actors and crew.

BUDGET

timeline

pre-production

location scout

LOCK script

funding campaign

Production design

production

post

little daddy

the

feature

The feature is in the early stages of development.

It takes place over 36 hours, with nothing but time, ecstatic music, and physical bodies. It starts in a club and ends ​in an afterparty. The proof of concept, Little Daddy, focuses on that afterparty. It contains the essence of the feature ​script in a stripped down form while maintaining the salient final scene of Shy’s transformation. The club, however, ​delves into larger looping structure of a day and a night spent in darkness, dance, identity bending, and play.

As an Icelandic American, the script touches on aspects of nordic mythology of descension and the underworld. It also ​takes the form of a Scandinavian narrative structure. As the four main characters begin in a toilet stall at the club and ​reconnect four times throughout the night in the same stalls.

As one narratologist put it: “Scandinavian narrative forms are often built around multiple characters, with a ritual-​based truth as the red thread. Yes, each of these characters has their own trajectory — a beginning, a sort of middle ​and a sort of end. And yet, during their journey, all the characters meet in a central meeting point several times. They ​discuss their adventure to date. Realign around the ritual truth. They fight. Learn. Develop — sometimes not. And then ​they move on to the next stage of their journey.”

The club space itself becomes an important mapping of the specifics of the overlapping milieu. The club labyrinth

itself provides the potential for losing oneself, and reveling in the very sensation of letting go.

little daddy

All images in this presentation are from a research shoot and soft casting that took place on January 13th in Berlin