"I'm Obsessed With You": A Talk With Up-and-coming Actress, Writer, and Filmmaker Genevieve Adams
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Flyby sat down with Genevieve Adams, a young actress, writer, and filmmaker, to discuss her first co-produced independent film I’m Obsessed with You (But You’ve Got to Leave Me Alone), which she also wrote and starred in. Set at Dartmouth, where Adams wrote the play as a script for her honors thesis, I’m Obsessed with You is “a coming of age ensemble comedy about an eccentric collegiate improv group who tries to live life according to the ‘yes and’ rule of improv.” The film is premiering at the Sonoma International Film Festival this week and the Boston International Film Festival on April 19th.
The positive response and enthusiasm for her script at Dartmouth continued as the play premiered in New York City. She decided to adapt the production into a film, hoping to share her story and characters with a wider audience. “I never predicted this, to be honest. I always knew I wanted a career in entertainment but I didn’t necessarily know what shape that would take,” Adams says, reflecting on the upcoming premiere of her film.
Adams had never written a screenplay before, and composed seventeen drafts of I’m Obsessed with You. “The story basically remained the same, but with film, you have a lot more scenes and you can use a lot more locations in the visual medium. My first couple of drafts were very dialogue-heavy, but then I learned how to tell the story with pictures,” she revealed.
The indie film market is competitive and filmmakers apply to different festivals, working to achieve positive regional distributions and hoping to attract the attention of a sales agent, and then a distributor, aiming towards wider release, either in theaters, or online, for example on Netflix. Adams notes that while “there are so many avenues for independent films now, I’m Obsessed with You is an audience movie” and so she would like to see it “become a theatrical release, because it’s the kind of movie that people enjoy seeing in groups. You lose something watching comedies alone.”
Any advice for aspiring actors or filmmakers? “If you approach things in a practical and creative way, you can make things happen for yourself. We’re living in a time in entertainment and art where anything is possible, if you’re willing to put in the work and believe in your originality and the people around you,” she advises.
I’m Obsessed with You (But You’ve Got to Leave Me Alone) premieres April 19th at the Boston International Film Festival.
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