Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) and Steven Spielberg (everything) are teaming up again to produce a family adventure film called Powerhouse, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The film, based on a story by Trevorrow, will be written and directed by Emily Carmichael, in her feature debut. There aren’t a lot of people whose first feature gets produced by Spielberg, but as is usually the case, Carmichael’s seeming overnight success is the product of years of preparation. Way back in 1999, she contributed two pieces to the anthology Ophelia Speaks, and despite being only 15, managed to be not only coherent but quotable:
“Girl power” is a product, like for instance peanut butter, not a movement, like for instance suffrage.
Above, you’ll find her 2011 Sundance film The Hunter and the Swan Discuss Their Meeting, a charming mix of the fantastical and the banal (and a precursor to the nightmare dinner party minigenre of indie films like It’s A Disaster and Coherence). Below is RPG OKC, an animated film that adopts the look and narrative conventions of Nintendo-era role-playing games to tell a story of star-crossed lovers.
It’s not hard to find other filmmakers making self-aware use of genre conventions, but there aren’t that many using them to tell stories that are more sweet than cynical. If Carmichael’s short films are any indication, Powerhouse should be worth looking out for. You can find more of Carmichael’s work at her website, more of Trevorrow’s work at Amazon, and more of Spielberg’s work literally anywhere you look.
