“SANDRA” is a surreal comedy that follows Jane (Alison Banowsky) whose banal and predictable life with her boyfriend (Andrew Knox) is upended when she finds out that a mysterious and erratic woman has been living in her basement. The film is about getting unstuck, learning to trust your intuition, and most importantly, letting your freaky side flourish.

Director’s Vision for ‘Sandra’

Hello! We are Hannah and Jen! Hannah is a veteran TV director with a decade of sketch comedy under their belt and Jen is a TV writer who has been toiling away in rooms for the last handful of years. We are also frequent collaborators in that we write together, own a dog together and are married, but we had never directed together. Our white whale! As it turns out, it was an incredibly rewarding experience to come together as directors for the first time. And everyone knows year one of a marriage is the narrative short film anniversary.

When Alison came to us with the idea for SANDRA, we immediately connected with the idea of how forging a relationship with the weirdest, freakiest part of yourself is essential to understanding what you need deep down. The ups and downs we’ve had in our careers and our individual paths to figuring out our queer identities informed how we saw the relationship between Jane and her basement-dwelling counterpart, Sandra. Figuring yourself out is strange and painful, but it’s inherently funny, too, and that’s what we wanted to lean into.

We also loved the idea of visually showcasing a character coming into her own set against the blank backdrop of a nearly empty house. And we were inspired by the challenge of having one actor playing two really distinct roles.

We hope SANDRA feels like a film for everyone, especially those of us who need that extra reminder to let that basement-dwelling freak part of our personalities come upstairs.