A hot-shot Crystal Magician puts domestic life on pause to strike back against the big business that ordered a mercenary “hit” on her Animist Kijutsu Temple…and, really, to send a message to all the Atzlan “haves”: nature and Ancient wisdom are more powerful than any human law.
Get to know the writer:
1. What is your screenplay about?
Female Braveheart with crystals and …mostly… non-violence
2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?
Fantasy / Sci-Fi
3. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
From a producer’s standpoint: you’d have a chance to tap into a billion dollar+ industry. And it’s only growing. I don’t know that the film industry has ever really catered to this crowd…so the audience potential is untold.
From a writer’s standpoint: my hope is that it would re-awaken ancient memories. Seeing things on film, to me, is like seeing things in your day-dreaming or imagination or visualization…it’s such a unique medium in that way.
So seeing Vai and the Animists activate crystals on screen, and them sensing vibration through the trees and communicating that way…it might awaken something long-forgotten in you. But if it would instead actually lead to pillaging Mother Earth to sell more crystals and just commercializing them…then I hope the movie never gets made.
4. How would you describe the script in two words?
“Power-with”
5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?
Either Spaceballs or Three Amigos… Me and my brother were obsessed with those two movies growing up so our parents would be popping in one VHS or the other, countless times…until we grew out of that phase.
6. How long have you been working on this screenplay?
Crystal Magician of Atzlan….since about March 2023. But it’s part of a bigger storyline that I’ve been working on since 2019.
Ithyllaya, who is a toddler in this one, was actually the main character (as an adult) from when I started writing this…but in one version of the rewrite she started having mommy issues. Because I had realized at that point that she’d gotten her zuisho (crystal wand) from her mom. So I had to find out who her mom was! (And her dad…)
7. How many stories have you written?
Maybe five short stories when I was younger? Since 2019, I wrote and re-wrote the Ithyllaya –
Aaru storyline (which I call “The Dream-Maker’s Crystal” storyline) in at least four different screenplay incarnations. And then this one is the fifth screenplay.
8. What motivated you to write this screenplay?
Vai is the superhero I always wanted to be. She came from me feeling so powerless…with all the things I don’t agree with going on in this world, and then, personally, with my own back injury.
So I put it on the page.
What I can’t seem to do, Vai can ;] She can take down a mine and free the enslaved prisoners there and give a big F U to the people who think they hold all the cards.
And…she guided me through some real tough times. Because in order to write her character I had to become as strong as her.
9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?
The deadline! And it was a self-imposed one … sort of.
I consulted with an Intuitive before setting out to finish it (and self-publish it as a book, hehe). I wanted to ask advice because…when a story keeps coming to me, I feel like I need to give voice to it. And get it out there.
I had been writing and re-writing and entering contests for five years and still not getting it out there, so I figured, heck, why not just publish it… But was I just being delusional?
The Intuitive told me that I had been trying to communicate this story for many lifetimes.
(Hehe – still trying!). She advised me to make a commitment. I was squeamish, but said okay.
Then she told me: “But don’t go past the three months.”
That was January 10, 2025.
I only had maybe five draft scenes and a half-baked treatment to work with on that day. But in the next three months, I got to viscerally experience what it means when they say “The obstacle is the way” because whenever I needed an answer…I received guidance. I got to reconnect with the Universe in a way I hadn’t in a very long time. And I didn’t go past the three months. Publication date was April 10, 2025.
10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
I like to oli! [Hawaiian chanting]
11. What influenced you to enter the festival?Feelings on initial feedback you received?
I so wanted to hear a scene from my script performed…and when I learned that FEEDBACK Female Film Festival offered that option…I was in!
Honestly, it was a sweetbitter experience reading the critique. Nothing wrong with the feedback…I agreed with most of it. But it was New Year’s Eve 2025. And there had been a lot of disappointments, especially in the latter half of the year….stuff like reoccurrence of my back injury, and losing my job because of that reoccurrence…
…so part of me felt like I just hadn’t done a good enough job again, and well, this is just going to be another lifetime where I don’t give voice to the story…
…but part of me was just so happy to be in story-space again! I had had to set writing aside to deal with material concerns for a while at that point…so hearing someone engage with the work and find some powerful moments and fun in the magical system…it felt like hearing from an old friend…
Festival Reviews 