Cheered on by her best friend, a teen confronts her greatest fear – tampons.

Director’s Statement

A Period Piece” started as a short story I wrote during a time that I was trying to rediscover my identity after having two children. I was in a place where I needed to remember my roots, my passions, and the relationships that shaped me in order to rebuild my identity and transform into the goal-oriented person I am today.

This short is loosely based on my experience as a teenager in Barstow, a small desert town between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I vividly remember jumping fences to swim in community pools, flirting with boys in the trailer park, and having wild desert adventures with my best friends. It was important for me to cast two young women who had authentic chemistry. Thankfully, my actors were friends in real life and it was easy for them to jump into the roles. We were also lucky to film at the exact same trailer park that I spent a lot of my youth in, giving more relevance to the location.

The main message of the film is ultimately female empowerment. After speaking with several women about our first time putting a tampon in, we all had that same fear beforehand and same sense of empowerment afterwards. Taking control of something that could ultimately hold you back is so empowering and I hope that reads on the screen. Women grow up constantly battling for control over their bodies (among many other things) and I wanted this to send a message to women, saying, “Don’t let anyone or anything stand in your way.