New York · Unruly Girl Productions · 2025
Unruly Girl
Productions
A female-led storytelling studio developing scalable IP centered on women of color across genre spaces.
New York · Unruly Girl Productions · 2025
A female-led storytelling studio developing scalable IP centered on women of color across genre spaces.
Accused of being "unsafe" in rehearsal, a Black acting student must defend herself as a monstrous double emerges, feeding on the prejudice and fear around her.
At a prestigious graduate acting conservatory, Imani — a talented but isolated Black student — is accused of being "aggressive" during a scene. As her classmates ostracize her and administrators question her sanity, a veiled creature begins to appear in her reflection. The deeper she falls into paranoia, the more the boundaries blur between acting and reality, spirit and self.
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I trained at conservatories that told me to go there — to be raw, unguarded, fully present. Then punished me when I was. Imani is the film I made from that experience.
Not as metaphor. As document. The conservatory is a specific kind of institution — one that claims to liberate artists while enforcing exactly which artists are allowed to be free. That contradiction has never been the subject of a horror film. Until now.
I founded Unruly Girl Productions because the only way to tell stories like this without compromise is to own them. Not pitch them. Not option them. Own them — from the first draft to the feature to whatever comes after.
This is the first one. It won't be the last.
Haitian American filmmaker whose work centers Black womanhood, ancestral knowledge, and intergenerational trauma through horror, magical realism, and sci-fi. Her most recent short, Sing A Black Girl Song, premiered in 2025.
MFA in Film, Columbia University. 2020 Sundance Blackhouse Fellow. 2021 Facebook SEEN Fellow. Jesse Thompkins III Memorial Award for screenwriting. Faculty Honors, Columbia University Film Festival. Currently associate artistic director at Developing Artists Theatre Company and assistant professor at Barnard College.
Independent film producer and MFA graduate of Columbia University. Former creative producer at Universal McCann and J3. At Jigsaw Productions, NYC. Most recent works Sombras Nada Mas and No Es Mi Nombre screened at the San Sebastián and Mill Valley Film Festivals.
"This story is both a warning and a reclamation. It's about what happens when you split yourself in two to survive."— Kristin Dodson
Unruly Girl Productions is built on a single conviction: the most powerful position in this industry is ownership. Not a development deal. Not an option. Ownership of the IP, from the first draft through feature, series, and beyond.
Our model is to originate stories internally — psychologically complex, genre-forward, centered on women of color — test them through cinematic short-form proof-of-concept, and expand the strongest into features and prestige series without surrendering the underlying rights.
Imani is the first. A psychological horror short film that occupies an intersection no one has claimed: institutional racism inside the American conservatory, rendered as social horror. Get Out did suburbia. Candyman did the housing project. Imani does the conservatory.
The short is the proof. The feature is the destination. The studio is the long game.
We're currently raising through two tracks: a public crowdfunding campaign on Seed & Spark, and a private investment round for qualified investors seeking equity in Unruly Girl Productions.
If you want to support the film, back the campaign. If you want to talk about what we're building and where it goes, request the deck.
The proof-of-concept model works.
Whiplash. Short film → Sundance Short Film Jury Prize → feature → 3 Oscars.
District 9. 6-minute short → Peter Jackson → $30M budget → $210M worldwide.
Lights Out. 2-minute no-budget short → Blumhouse → $148M worldwide.
Saw. 10-minute short → Lions Gate → $100M+ franchise.
The market is not niche. The market is underserved. That is the opportunity.
We don't ask for a seat. We build the table.
info@unrulygirlproductions.com