LIFE AND HOW TO LIVE IT
Oona and Maccabee Montandon
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LOGLINE
Romantic Drama, Comedy Feature
Two estranged childhood best friends meet at a party seven years after they last spoke and confront the state of their lives, their ambitions, and what is left of their friendship.
Writer’s Statement
From birth to age eighteen I lived with my family in a rent-controlled sixth-floor apartment overlooking the southwest corner of Prospect Park. Although most adult New Yorkers would probably covet our spot over the inheritance of their parents' three-story suburban Colonial, as a child I could not help but lament my life's cruel absence of a backyard, inevitably eliciting from both my parents the same response: "The park is your backyard." And, in hindsight, I can say decisively that they were wrong. Prospect Park is closer to a member of our family than anything so pedestrian as a backyard. During all the birthday parties of my early years, school field trips, through adolescent petty crime and sweaty high-school encounters the park was present and benevolently taciturn, and when I first moved to Berlin after high school I missed it almost as palpably as I did my own sister. This project, undertaken with my father, the one man whose bond with Prospect Park may be as strong as my own, is an attempt to translate this odd kinship, as well as to shorten the considerable distance between our forked lives across our respective continents. The story of a young woman re-negotiating the relationships that defined her teenagehood and growing to understand her role in the adult world is one that I am intimately familiar with, one I tell troublingly often in my attempts to contextualize the life I am living right now. To have Prospect Park as my backdrop, not to mention caretaker and confidant, is a stroke of luck that inspired our script, but which has also greatly informed my own first stumbling steps into real life.
- Oona Montandon
PITCH DECK
Christine Covode. Director
Christine is a playwright, improviser and director known for her 2022-2024 One-Woman Show, “Dear Mom, Sorry for Being a Bitch,” which ran Off- Broadway at SoHo Playhouse for multiple engagements. In addition to her Off-Broadway experience, Christine is a sketch comedy writer, improviser and director. She will be directing an upcoming Web Series called Sisterly which will have heavy Key & Peele inspiration and production value. She is in the post production of her latest short film, Parked Car, which she wrote and directed earlier this year. She is looking forward to directing Life and How to Live It with such an amazing crew!
Oona Montandon. Co-Writer
Oona Montandon is a Brooklyn-born and Berlin-based writer and actor completing her undergraduate studies in Literature at Bard College Berlin. She has performed in theater productions at the Bushwick Starr and the Brick, as well as at her university, and she appeared in the web series Ocean Parkway.
Maccabee Montandon. Co-Writer
Maccabee Montandon is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor with a diverse portfolio in film and web series. He co-wrote the short film The Pool Party and served as co-writer and producer on Spark Wheel, a festival-touring short starring Dave Hill and Adam Pally. Maccabee is also a co-writer of the forthcoming feature In The Wind, now in pre-production. Additionally, he was a co-creator, co-writer, and producer of the web series Ocean Parkway, which The New York Times praised as "funny and irreverent."
Sydney Simoncini. Producer
Sydney Simoncini is a New York based filmmaker and educator who focuses on media literacy and narrative shorts. She has produced a number of short films and documentaries, and has a deep-rooted interest in creative storytelling. With her M.A. from New York University, Sydney is a community-oriented artist, eager to tell new and interesting stories that inspire dialogue and catalyze social change. She most enjoys helping to bring people’s passion projects to life and producing short films. When not focusing on film production and storytelling, she can be found teaching at Interlochen Center for the Arts and Take Two Film Academy.
Sarah Spangler. Producer
Sarah Spangler is a writer and producer based in New York City. Originally from Michigan, she began her film career at the University of Michigan, where her screenplay When Trains Fall From Space won the Judge’s Award at the Lightworks Film Festival. After earning her degree, she continued her studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Since then, Sarah has worked across film and television, including documentary production at ISH Entertainment, late-night at Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and distribution at Gunpowder & Sky. She currently works as a director’s assistant at Tom McCarthy’s Slow Pony and has produced a range of short films in her free time, including Parked Car, directed by Christine Covode. When she’s not on set, she’s probably on a tennis court or getting her money’s worth from her AMC Stubs pass.
Molly Loftus. Consulting Producer
Molly is an award-winning writer, producer, director and assistant director with a decade of experience creating commercial, documentary and narrative video content. She got her start as the lead producer of Worth magazine, where she managed a $1 million annual budget and founded Worth's first ever multimedia branded content studio. The video, audio, live and print content that she produced and directed features incredible talent such as SNL's Lindsay Shookus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, CEO of Cornerstone Capital Inc. Erika Karp.
With a honed interest in producing high quality video content, Molly became a production consultant at Google and Skillshare, where she produces and directs educational videos with celebrity artists and influencers. She is a storyteller at her core, and is especially passionate about uplifting women and highlighting their stories on screen.
Emily Mansfield. Consulting Producer
Emily is a New York based producer, writer, director and casting director. With over 10 years of experience, Emily has worked in both development and casting, as well as production and post-production in television, documentary, commercial and film. She began her career in the world of TV, starting on Food Network’s Chopped, and casted shows such as House Hunters, and Beat Bobby Flay. Emily also developed series for Rachael Ray, Hawa Hassan and other celebrity talent. In addition to working in non-scripted television, Emily has produced documentaries and docu-series in the education, food, travel and true crime spaces.
On the commercial side, Emily has produced digital and linear ads for international brands such as Laura Mercier, Google, Lincoln Town Car, Amazon Music and VRBO. Her ongoing goal is to create bold, mission-driven and genre-bending creative projects. Emily is a graduate of The George Washington University with a dual degree in international affairs and political science.
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