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Logline

Desperate for some company, a delirious new mother tumbles into a magnetic friendship with her estranged aunt – an eccentric recluse with even more demands than her baby.

Synopsis

35 year-old Joanna is a total nut. She’s also an artist and new mom. But she’s not making any art and she’s terrible at taking care of her newborn. Worse, her husband fancies himself to be a mothering expert. Desperate for some company, Joanna tumbles into an unlikely friendship with her estranged aunt Miriam, a reclusive theatre actress. Miriam seems the perfect companion for Joanna — she’s artsy, honest, eccentric, and she hates babies. But all goes haywire when Joanna tries to mother her aunt instead of her baby. Another Happy Day is a tender and tense comedy exploring postpartum depression, intergenerational friendship, and what it means to be family.

This film prioritized childcare provisions for cast and crew and committed to 8-hour shoot days. The team behind Another Happy Day intends to set a precedent for filmmaking practices and priorities for an accessible, welcoming, and healthy workplace for all.
 

Meet the Filmmakers

Nora Fiffer – Writer/Director/Producer
Nora Fiffer is a writer, director, producer, and actor who has co-written/directed/produced four short films and twelve plays. In 2018, Nora co-founded Firelight Theatre Workshop and has produced over 20 site-specific, immersive projects onstage and on film. The New Hampshire Theatre Alliance awarded Nora Best Director and NH Magazine named Firelight Best Experimental Theatre. A graduate of NYU Tisch and The School at Steppenwolf, Nora has performed with Steppenwolf, Goodman, Lookingglass, Court, Northlight, Chicago Shakespeare, Steep, receiving two Jeff Nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Nora’s debut feature, Another Happy Day, starring Lauren Lapkus and featuring Carrie Coon, was selected for development with NYWIFT’s FS2P Lab, Stowe Story Labs, and Sundance Co//ab. The film is represented by UTA Indepdendent Film Group and Circus Road Films, and will be released with Gravitas Ventures fall 2024.

Lauren Lapkus – Lead Cast/Executive Producer
Lauren Lapkus scored a 2016 Emmy nomination for her lead role in short form comedy The Earliest Show and a SAG Award for her work on Orange is the New Black. She has appeared on such series as the Big Bang Theory, Good Girls, Crashing, and Lucifer. She has voiced roles on Bob’s Burgers, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Adventure Time, and more. Her film credits include Jurassic World, The Wrong Missy, and Between Two Ferns: The Movie.

Carrie Coon – Featured Cast/Executive Producer
Carrie Coon is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents with a wide variety of roles across film, television, and theatre. She has garnered acclaim throughout her career and continues to cultivate her impressive body of work.

Carrie will next be seen co-starring in Azazel Jacobs’ His Three Daughters, alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olson. The acclaimed film premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and will be released by Netflix in September.

She recently wrapped production on season three of the Emmy-winning anthology series The White Lotus, alongside Michelle Monaghan, Christian Friedel, Aimee Lou Wood, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey and Leslie Bibb.

In 2023, Carrie was seen in season two of HBO’s Emmy-nominated series The Gilded Age, created by Julian Fellowes, alongside Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon and Morgan Spector. Carrie portrays ‘Bertha Russell,’ which earned her second primetime Emmy nomination for “Best Actress in a Drama Series.” The series has also been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for “Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series” and is in production on season three.

Jessie Holder Tourtellotte – Featured Cast/Lead Producer
Jessie Holder Tourtellotte is a film and theatre actress, writer, and producer. Best known for her work in independent film and on theatre stages in Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, DC and more. Recent credits include Another Happy Day (Red Squirrel Films) and Flinch (Inherent Films). She has been a winner of the Los Angeles International Screenplay Competition and the SYS Six Figure Screenplay Competition, as well as a semifinalist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowship, among others. She is the Founder and CEO of Inherent Films.

Eugene Sun Park – Executive Producer
Eugene Sun Park is a filmmaker and producer working in narrative and experimental forms. His films have screened at over 400 festivals, micro-cinemas, museums, and alternative screening venues around the world, including SXSW, BAMcinemafest, Outfest, Frameline, Chicago International, Cleveland International, Chicago Underground, Athens International Film + Video Festival, and Antimatter. His feature-length script Michael’s Story (a fictional drama inspired by the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin) won the screenplay competition at the 37th Asian American International Film Festival in New York. Eugene is the 2020 Community Impact Scholar of the Harvard Business School Alumni Club of Chicago, and he was the 2019 recipient of the Jan and Frank Cicero Fellowship at the Newberry Library. Described by Newcity as “essential to the film world of Chicago,” Eugene was recently inducted into the magazine’s inaugural Film 50 Hall of Fame.

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact fiscalsponsorship@filmindependent.org.