SURVIVED BY a Film By K.D. Chalk

*2023 HollyShorts Film Festival Best Female Screenplay Winner!

*2024 Dances With Films Audience Award Winner!

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Title. Survived By

Genre. Coming of Age, Fantasy, Drama

Production Year. 2023

Country of Origin. USA

Language. English

Run Time. 12:30

Screen Ratio. 1.85:1

Sound Format. Stereo and 5.1

Logline: A newly orphaned kid dodging the foster care system spends a magical evening with a sock puppet hoping to unpack her complicated relationship with her father days after his death.

Director’s Statement

Growing up in the South, my parents loved attending funerals and taking me along. The scene felt like a pageant composed of Gospel music, floral smells, and old-timey phrases like, “They looked good (or bad),” as visitors whispered past the open casket. Death was a huge part of my Black Southern culture; however, when my father died, I had no toolkit to handle the inevitable–grief. This part wasn’t included in the pomp and circumstance of a funeral procession.

In North Carolina, I’d return to a place where I didn’t feel accepted, to bury a distant and sometimes neglectful father. I didn’t experience the closeness of a daddy-daughter relationship, and in the days after his funeral, I seemed to yearn for it more and more. A few months after his funeral, the pandemic happened, and my husband and I moved back into my childhood home for five months. There I was, knee-deep in traumatic memories and a found box of old puppets from my days as a children’s theater actor. The homemade costumes from my childhood productions and all of my handcrafted make-believe props stirred up a sense of relief in me. So I played! The more I nurtured my inner child with music, imagination, and art, the closer I got to healing. I awakened my true self. I wrote Survived By in the realm of a Black Jim Henson fever dream. I found it necessary to inspire the picture with the highs and lows of grief through a child’s colorful mind. While including self soothing hum’s from the actor's to infuse the score.

Survived By is a portal for survivors wishing for one more special moment with a loved one through the innocence of a child. Like my journey, our protagonist Grace is processing grief with a sense of wonder and imagination. Grace heals her “father wounds” by having a fantastical party with a sock puppet. The remarkable remedy to her grief is her new chosen family. As a Film Independent Project Involve producer fellow, I assembled a team of my gifted and kindhearted peers to collaborate on this project with me. Filmmaking truly takes a villiage. I am committed to telling Black female-focused stories with BIPOC, LGBTQ+ communities, and Womxn leading the charge in front and behind the camera. Our team consists of 95% Women of Color as a Head of Department.

As a first-time director, my mission is to use fantasy to encourage people to unite with their truest, unadulterated selves. I made Survived By to encourage audiences to grieve in their own way, and to laugh because this grief shit is hard.

Chris Chalk as Sock Dad

Starring

Kiarra G. Beasley as Grace

Born in Asheville, NC, Chris Chalk is an actor, writer, and director currently living in Los Angeles, CA. Some of Chalk’s acting credits include Season 2 of Feud Capote vs The Swans as James Baldwin, HBO’s Perry Mason, the 2023 Sundance darling All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Apple+ Shining Girls opposite Elisabeth Moss, and Fox’s Gotham. Ava Duvernay’s Emmy nominated Netflix mini-series When They See Us, Homeland, Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom, USA’s Complications, Underground created by Misha Green, Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit, Oscar winning Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Red Sea Diving Resort with Chris Evans, and starring alongside Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez in Charles Stone’s film Lila and Eve. Chalk is currently in production for MAX’s Welcome To Derry.

You can catch this talented teen as a series regular on NBC’s Extended Family, S.M.A.S.H on Netflix, The Black Lady Sketch Show on HBO Max, KC Pop Quiz on Karton Channel and many more. Beasley has also appreaerd on the well known Dhar Man youtube series, Cardi B Tries, J Cole’s ATM Music video, and her Lead Role in GoldieBlox’s Curiosity Camp; not to mention feature and short films including Swim Instructor Nightmare on Lifetime, Look, Mira, Reborn on Hulu, A Halloween wish, and Battle Stations. On her down time she plays several instruments including piano, clarinet, saxophone and electric guitar, and when she's not busy with that, Kiarra is super into crocheting and baking.

Director/Writer/Producer/Miss Kim

K.D. Chalk K.D. Chalk is a 2023 Film Independent Project Involve Filmmaker and actor from Rural Hall, North Carolina. The NBC/Universal Diversity Showcase actor and The ABFF Star Project winner can be seen starring opposite Jake Johnson in the Apple+ television pilot HABATA directed by Josh Greenbaum. Chalk's first feature as producer and actor, OUR DEADLY VOWS, the STARZ original made its theatrical debut in July 2023, and is currently available on AMAZON.

Chalks' writer and producer credits include FABULOUSNESS'NESS WITH CLEA AND JORDAN (finalist in the Funny or Die Make'em LAFF (Los Angeles Film Festival), SEALED (Independent New York "Best of Short Film Showcase ''and Best Experimental film in the 2010 LA Reel Film Festival), THE OPENERS (Best Short at the Broad Humor Festival)

K.D. can also be seen recurring on DAYS OF OUR LIVES and improving beside the late great Fred Willard in SECOND CITY PRESENTS LAST MAN ON EARTH. The WIF Mentoring Program alum is the 2023 winner for Best Female Screenplay at HollyShorts Film Festival for her directorial debut film SURVIVED BY. The SURVIVED BY team recently won the Audience Award at Dances With Films.

Our Creative Team

Cinematographer KIM COHEN is a Los Angeles based Director of Photography. Originally from the Chicagoland Area, she is an ambitious storyteller who has shot numerous short films, music videos for Grammy Award Winning songwriters, commercials, documentaries and branded content pieces. Uplifting a project's vision is her top priority. She aims to support her community by sharing her passion for filmmaking and remaining curious in all of her pursuits. Most recently, a short film she shot called “Saturday” won the Audience Award for Deutsche Bank Frieze Los Angeles 2023. She is currently a 2023 Cinematography Fellow for Film Independent's Project Involve.

Producer NICOLE CRESPO is a Latinx Creative and Line Producer originally from Miami and based in Los Angeles. The 2023 Project Involve Fellow has produced shorts that have screened worldwide and is a NALIP Producers Pipeline Fellow and produced on two seasons of the Disney Launchpad Program. Her recent shorts include The Last of The Chupacabras (dir. Jessica Mendez Siqueiros), Countdown (dir. Justin Dec) and Project CC (dir. Cashmere Jasmine). She is also a founder of the commercial production company Jumping Girl Productions, which has a niche in producing for fashion and beauty clients including Burberry, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Hugo Boss and others.

Producer PINAR BINAY originally from a small town in Western Turkey, is a creative producer based in Los Angeles. 2023 Project Involve Producing fellow and a recent graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts with triple Minors in producing, business and art history, she produced 25+ short films and worked with acclaimed independent producers in New York City, such as Oscar Boyson and Trudie Styler, and industry-leading managers of Entertainment 360 right after graduation. As a producer, she advocates for genre stories with a twist and diverse creators. Coming from an immigrant background, she aspires to find the most authentic stories in innovatively told histories.

Production Designer EMMA KOH (she/her) is a Korean American artist, filmmaker/Production Designer, and advocate of #stopasianhate, was born and raised in Southern California - specifically LA & the OC. She recently production designed the 2024 Oscar nominated short RED WHITE AND BLUE as well as a recipient of the Tichi Wilkerson Kassel Scholarship by Women in Film, and Art Directed the Film Independent award winning film, SPA NIGHT, as well as JAMOJAYA, which made its debut at the most recent Sundance Film Festival, 2023. Since graduating from AFI, Emma has worked in commercials, music videos, indie features, network television, as well as a producer in VFX & Arch Vis during her time in NYC. You can watch her most recent work as Art Director for the newly released Netflix series, XO Kitty - a spinoff series of the film trilogy: TO ALL THE BOYS I LOVED BEFORE by Jenny Han.

Puppet Fabricator and Puppeteer OLIVIA VALDEZ is a Film Independent Project Involve stop-motion animator and filmmaker from Florida. After achieving her Bachelor’s at New York University, Olivia attended BAU, Barcelona School of Design for her Master’s in stop-motion. While there she and two others made their first short film, The Weight of It (2021). In December 2022, Olivia completed her solo directorial debut in her stop-motion short, The Test. She and her team fabricated and animated the film out of her parent’s garage. Olivia hopes one day her name will be thee reference for stop-motion horror.

Editor LUODAWEI XIO is a 2023 Project Involve film editor from mainland, China. He came to the US in 2018 to pursue a Masters degree in film editing at the American Film Institute. His AFI thesis film, We Were Meant To, recently won a student BAFTA. His other short film, A Black Saturday, has been selected by Slamdance Film Festival. Both films will premiered in 2023.