Client: Dana Jeter
Project Name: Small Claims
Project Type: Student Film Agreement
Film Location: Willits, CA
Film Dates: March 23-28 (subject to shift a day or two)
Rate: $125-$150/8-hour day
Storyline: When her neighbor’s dogs kill 25 of her sheep, a Japanese-American city-kid-turned-shepherd takes her fight for justice to court — only to find her own claims to belonging put on trial.
Seeking performers able to portray the following roles:
YUKI
- Mid to late 20s, Japanese or Asian American, female
- A city-kid-turned-shepherd, Yuki is sturdy built, stubborn and sharp as a whip. She gets things done but her self-sufficiency can feel a lot like loneliness and makes it hard for her to build community. Educated at an Ivy League school, she spent summers on farms. After graduating, she traded city pavement for pastureland, living and working on a sheep farm. The town sees her as an outsider, too sharp-edged, too Ivy League, too different. Yuki will have to reckon with her identity as a queer Asian woman in a place that doesn’t always know what to do with her. She’s built a life here but is that the same as finding home.
- Seeking an actor with a strong physical presence and comfort around animals.
TRISH
- Early 60s, Caucasian, female
- A formidable, no-nonsense back-to-the-lander who has spent a lifetime working the land. Gruff but deeply loyal, she’s as quick to anger as she is to cry. A half-century of cigarettes, sun and hard labor have left their mark: a sunken chest, swollen knuckles and that damn tremor in her hand.
- Trish and her husband carved out a life in Mendocino County, small-town kids turned back-to-the-landers in the early ’80s. Now, with her husband dead and her son, or grandson, Levi grown, it’s time to hand over the reins of the farm, but that means trusting she’s still needed even as the farm and her own body changes around her.
- Seeking an actor willing to smoke herbal cigarettes.
LEVI
- 18-25, Caucasian, male or non-binary
- A gangly, baby-faced farm kid with boyish charm and a head full of dreams. He’s playful, quick-witted and firmly rooted in the scrappy realities of rural life. His hair is never brushed, his pants never quite long enough, but that’s just part of his charm. For Levi, Yuki is the closest thing he has to an older sister, their bond only strengthened when he came out to her. He’s not above giving her a hard time, especially when he envies the privileges she seems to take for granted. Now in his first year at California State, Levi is figuring out what it means to step away from the farm while still feeling tethered to it, to his mother, or grandmother, Trish, and to Yuki.
Submission Instructions: Please send your headshot, reel and resume to ddnofamecasting@gmail.com. In the subject line of your submission, please write the name of the project and role that you are submitting for. For example: Submission for Small Claims, Role of Yuki.
We are committed to diverse, inclusive casting. For every role, please submit qualified performers, without regard to disability, race, age, color, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity, or any other basis prohibited by law, unless otherwise specifically indicated.
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