A bride-to-be must confront hidden truths when a former classmate makes a dark accusation against her future husband.
Faces follows Aria and AJ, a young couple preparing for marriage while navigating differences in class, taste, and perspective. Their relationship is shaken when they run into Bree, one of AJ’s former classmates, who brings forward painful accusations from the past. What should be a love story quickly unravels into a reckoning of trust, memory, and the fragile lines between truth and doubt.
Director's Statement
A mediation on the complexities of romantic relationships, the inspiration surrounding this film has a lot to do with dissecting the psyche of the women partnered with men accused of sexual assault and rape. What emotional processing do these women undergo? Shock, denial, disgust, or all the above?
Tone and Themes
raw
tense
meditative
Faces is a serious drama with surreal touches, exploring complex topics like sexual coercion in committed relationships and assault in academic settings. Through nuanced dialogue and layered character dynamics, the film creates an intimate, dreamlike world grounded in realism.
Why This Story Matters
Faces sheds light on the often-overlooked realities of abuse, coercion, and assault in relationships and graduate programs. By telling this story, we aim to spark conversation, raise awareness, and give voice to experiences that are frequently silenced, offering audiences a chance to reflect, empathize, and engage with these urgent issues.
Team
Jasmine Siddall
Writer/Director/Producer
Jasmine is a writer/director/producer and multidisciplinary artist. She received an MFA from Chapman University in 2021, and her thesis film, God's Gift, played at Hollyshorts and won Best Thriller at Imagine This Women's Festival in NYC. She explores overlooked aspects of Black American life, past and present, weaving memory, media, art, and pop culture into a surreal yet grounded perspective. Her work examines themes of sexuality, relationships, family, religion, young adulthood, and ancestral roots, offering insight into both personal and shared experiences. She lives in LA with her 2-year-old son, her boyfriend, and their fluffy gray cat - the real man of the house - Fitzgerald.
Mike Tarranos
Producer
Mike Tarranos began his career in camera and still photography for documentaries, including projects with Paramount, before shifting his focus to producing and production management. Passionate about storytelling, his recent films have screened at festivals such as the Pittsburgh Film Festival, HollyShorts, LA Shorts, and more, bringing diverse and compelling stories to audiences.
Jakiyah Cabell
Producer
Jakiyah Cabell is an L.A.-based Creative Producer who specializes in narrative, experimental, and documentary filmmaking, music videos, commercials, and branded content for campaigns. She is passionate about community engagement and additionally works with non-profit organizations to host documentary filmmaking and visual storytelling workshops catered to BIPOC youth in under-resourced inner-city communities in L.A. She currently teaches a 13-week documentary training program at Walt Whitman High School. She is very excited to be one of the producers for FACES--written and directed by Jasmine Siddall.
Mandy Schnatter
Producer/1st AD
Based in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, Mandy is a comics artist and independent film producer/assistant director. A graduate of San Francisco State University’s cinema program (with honors, 2021), she has worked on and produced shorts featured in festivals such as Another Hole in the Head. Beyond film, Mandy creates autobiographical comics and freelance animations for shorts and independent documentaries. When she’s not on set, she’s making funky cowboy sculptures or spending time with her cat, Niles.
marilyn Flores
Cinematographer
Marilyn Flores is a Salvadoran filmmaker and cinematographer based in Los Angeles. A graduate of San Francisco State University’s cinema program (with honors), she has shot short films, documentaries, and features centering marginalized voices, including Las Caravanas (2018) and Where in the Hell (2024). Her work spans narrative, vérité, music videos, and commercial projects with clients such as Google and the Internet Archive. A finalist for AFI’s Cinematography Intensive for Women, Marilyn is also an Associate Member of the Society of Camera Operators. She brings a diasporic lens to stories of identity, belonging, and womanhood, while continuing to experiment with visual language and cinematic form.
Charnele Crandle
Production Designer
A Hampton, VA native and Clark Atlanta University alum, Charnele is a production designer and visual artist specializing in creating bold, immersive environments for film and media. She co-founded the creative agency Two2Versions, where she oversaw art direction and design for clients like AfroPunk and PBR, blending cultural storytelling with striking visuals. With a background in photography and curation, Charnele brings a keen eye for detail and atmosphere to her film work, using design to elevate narrative and mood.
Danielle Gibson
Costume Designer
Danielle Gibson is an Afro-Latina writer and director based in Los Angeles with an MFA in Film Directing from Chapman University and a BA from Towson University. Her satirical, magical realist films have screened at Diversity at Festival de Cannes, CAA’s Moebius Showcase, and on American Airlines’ in-flight entertainment. A member of the Alliance of Women Directors, she is excited to costume design for Faces.
Amanda Peek
Intimacy Coordinator
Amanda Peek is an experienced intimacy coordinator whose credits include Don’t Worry Darling and Sinners. She works to ensure safety, consent, and trust on set during intimate or emotionally charged scenes, guiding actors and directors through choreography and boundaries. With her expertise, Amanda helps create a space where vulnerability can be expressed authentically—and safely.
Help Us Tell This Important Story
Your support will make this film possible. Every contribution helps cover essential costs like paying our lovely cast and crew, equipment, set dressing, meals, and post-production, bringing this story of love, trust, and reckoning to life.
Donation Examples
We are fiscally sponsored through Fractured Atlas, and your donation is TAX EXEMPT! This makes the end of the year the perfect time to donate to make a beautiful film come to life. Our production budget is $18,000, and our post-production goal is $ 2,000, bringing our total goal to $20,000.
Your donations will Go To Every Single Aspect of Production, To ensure a Safe and Collaborative Set
- Supporter: $50-75 = Space for casting and rehersals
- Friend: $100-250 = Camera or lighting supplies
- Bestie: $350-500 = Supports a day of production
- $600-750 = insurance - t-shirt, poster, tickets to local screening, and special thanks in credits
- Visionary: $1500 = Craft services for the entire shoot - t-shirt, poster, tickets to local screening, and special thanks in credits
- Trailblazer: $3500 = locations and production design - private screening/dinner with the cast and crew, tickets to local screening
- Crew Member: $5000 = payment for cast and crew, and more, this ultimate donor payment will make sure our production has a chance, and you recieve an executive producer credit and everything listed abov.
- Interested in donating a large amount and want to learn more about the film? Click here. To read the script, please reach out to me directly: jbsiddallfilm@gmail.com