LOLA: GIRL GOT A GUN

LOLA: GIRL GOT A GUN bares witness to a young and angelic girl who experiences the emotional weight of her mother’s abuse by her conservative NRA member father. The heaviness of the abuse permeates her home, and she searches for an outlet for her anger and fear. She feels that all is lost, until one day she wanders into her parents’ room the morning after a particularly violent night. What she finds changes her worldview permanently: her father’s loaded pistol. She decides to keep it as her own, names it Lola, and paints it bubble gum pink. The girl’s got a gun now – her very own defense – and nobody can take it away from her.

Director’s Bio
Emily Elizabeth Thomas (Writer, Director) is the CEO of Jane Street Productions, and its in-house writer and director. Emily is immensely proud to have been born and bred in Austin, TX, where she was raised to embody true Southern grit. Emily got her start in filmmaking at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she cut her teeth on 16 and 35mm film, screenwriting, and cinema history and theory studies. Chicago was also the birth of Emily’s career as a social activist. In Chicago, she focused her social good efforts on working on projects that fought and advocated for the protection and care of inner-city sex workers – solidifying her long established insistence that her artistry would stand for something that was truly important to her – advocacy for the equal rights of all women, and the liberation of anyone who is other. Emily’s writing and directing credits include IN SUPPORT OF HEFORSHE, a short documentary for UN Women’s gender equality campaign, HeForShe, and LOLA: GIRL GOT A GUN. Emily holds an MA from New York University.

Plays in

MATINEE TWO

The Nitehawk Shorts Festival’s MATINEE TWO screening includes eight films that imbue life and death as explored in stories about finite mortality, complex relationships, and exceeding expectations in an oppressive world.