Filmmakers Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert Don't Give Up

On paper, Finn's Girl sounds like it includes laundry list of modern social issues, including abortion rights, interracial relationships, lesbian motherhood, grieving after the loss of a partner/parent, and so on. And certainly, most first-time filmmakers are prone to overwriting and letting melodrama bloat a picture. Thankfully, the movie avoids this with tight writing, solid direction and some excellent performances.

In fact, Colbert actually thought it was funny that reviewers kept harping on the point, considering they'd never sat down to make a film about "issues": "I'll give you an example — we never were writing in a biracial relationship, it just so happened that the black woman who showed up to the film gave the best audition. I think people thought we sat around with all these issues and then wrote the script!" She laughed again.

Yanna McIntosh as Diana in Finn's Girl

"What we were really interested in," Colbert explained, "was the doctor character and her kid, and that she would have a love interest in the end. And she would be left kind of high and dry with the kid — so it was just kind of the scenario we were looking for, so for us, we just see it as a story."

It was precisely these "issues" that made the movie frustratingly tough to get funding for. As documentary filmmakers, the women had something of a built-in audience as well as interested investors who saw their activism as a kind of charitable cause, but a narrative film was a whole new ballgame.

"It happened over a long period of time, and we certainly couldn't get any funding for it, boy," said Colbert. "With the shorts, the documentaries, we were fully funded with no problem whatsoever; this thing we got rejected by everybody. So it was a long process to actually get it to the camera."

True to the scrappy, do-it-yourself image associated with the indie filmmaker, they went ahead and scraped together the money themselves, making use of every resource available. Colbert said: "We edited [the film] in our own home on a Final Cut Pro, the actors are wearing our clothes. You know the bar scene? That's actually a hallway in our house. In the next scene afterwards [in Finn's house], they're walking down the exact same hallway."

Brooke Johnson as Finn in Finn's Girl

She continued: "It's full of borrowed cars; Max's house is our producer's house; the clinic that we shot in was actually a real abortion clinic. I don't think we spent more than $1,000 on the set in total, and that includes wardrobe as well. We just did it with what was available to us, and that's it."

Lesbian films (particularly features) are notoriously difficult to get off the ground, so Colbert and Cardona's experience is unfortunately nothing new. But Colbert thinks the biggest problem is that not enough women are going out and seeing movies: "I just read an article that said the attendance for lesbian films is terrible — now that we've been to most of the gay and lesbian festivals in America, I have to say, quite frankly, the attendance was bad."

She sighed and conceded that Finn's Girl may have been aimed more at older women, or to a stronger feminist sensibility than is typical at the movies right now, but that didn't fully explain the problem. "Ten years ago," she said, "there was a huge audience for feminist work before. Where's it gone?

"I think all the festivals are struggling as well, especially to get women to come to films. And it didn't matter if it was Out at the Wedding, Finn's Girl, Itty Bitty Titty Committee — it's just tough to get people to come out. I don't know how to get the audience out. I don't know where the audience is; I don't know if they're watching TV; I don't know what they're doing, but they certainly aren't coming to movies."

She was quick to acknowledge that it's not all bad news for queer women in film and TV, but it is certainly a different atmosphere. "For us, it's been kind of fascinating because the whole gay and lesbian scene has changed. It really has changed in the last five years — especially with The L Word. And one thing is that a lot of people buy DVDs now. I think Finn's Girl will do very well on the DVD market. I don't think there's any problem there, and people will watch it on TV. But trying to get people to come to festivals and cinemas? That's a tough sell."

Moving ahead, the filmmakers are working on a new project, which they're beginning to write this summer. "It's more — if you could say any role model, it would be Little Miss Sunshine," said Colbert. "Going along with that, it's very character-driven, and again, set in our house in Toronto."

As part of the tiny minority of queer filmmakers who attempt a second feature, Cardona and Colbert are practically grizzled veterans now. "It's harder to make the second [feature] than the first — the first one, you're riding on enthusiasm," Colbert said. "[You're riding] on that craziness and you're naïve — it's fantastic. The second one, you're much more aware of all the pitfalls."

She paused thoughtfully. "That doesn't mean we're giving up — we don't give up easily."

Finn's Girl will be available on DVD on Aug. 5. For more on Cardona and Colbert, visit the Finn's Girl website.