GG Hawkins is a writer, director, and podcaster whose debut feature, I Really Love My Husband, is having its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival. She is also a fellow of the Film Independent Episodic Lab and the Moonshot Initiative Pilot Accelerator, and her work has been showcased at the Tribeca Festival, HollyShorts Film Festival, Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, Sonoma International Film Festival, Dances With Film, and more. She received the Channie Award for Best Directing for the web series Kinda Flakey and her short film An Aspirational Space was awarded the Robert De Niro Scholarship. When she is not writing and directing, she hosts the No Film School Podcast, interviewing filmmaking talent such as Kelly Fremon Craig, Ray Romano, Chris McKay and Stephen Williams. She also helps people launch their own podcasts. Learn more at gghawkins.com.
Getting an Oscar is my worst nightmare – I’d be set up to fail.
How do you properly thank everyone who was fundamental to making a film in such a short speech? It’s impossible. We all know it takes a village to finish an indie film. In the six years I’ve spent making sketches, shorts, podcasts and, most recently, my indie feature I Really Love My Husband, one thing has remained true: it’s the cast and crew who elevate a project beyond anything my writer-director brain could have imagined.
In making the leap to longer-form work – a leap that only happened because I greenlit myself – I had to develop a whole new level of trust that things would work out (or maybe it was just blissful ignorance of how hard it would be).
What I didn’t realize was that beyond my filmmaking team, it would be complete strangers who would ultimately carry me across the finish line. And now I Really Love My Husband is about to have its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival.
Because making an indie film is such a nebulous process, I want to highlight six of these strangers – Alex, Travis, Penny, Michael, Raven and Tony – how we connected, and how they helped me. My hope is that other filmmakers on the verge of greenlighting themselves can see the power of embracing the kindness of strangers. (Blanche DuBois was onto something.)
Alex
I wrote I Really Love My Husband to take place on Isla Carenero, a small Panamanian island just a few minutes by boat from its larger sister island of Bocas del Toro. I grew up visiting these islands – my stepdad lived there for 16 years, my mom married him on the same beach where we shot the film, and my brother was born there.
Getting to Isla Carenero is its own journey: it’s two commercial flights to get to Panama City, then a smaller plane to Bocas (huge thanks to FlyTrip for adding extra flights to get everyone
there!), and finally, a boat ride to the island. The film actually tracks the characters through this exact trek, showing just how far off the grid they really are.
Because Isla Carenero is a trek to get to, it’s mostly remained a destination for backpackers and surfers – though that’s starting to change. We knew we needed to house our small but mighty crew close to the picture house, and since the island has no roads or cars, it had to be within walking distance.
While scouting locations, we had our eye on an Airbnb surf school, Zona Tropical, located right next to our picture house, but it was out of our budget.
I reached out to the owner, Alex Rodriguez, directly on WhatsApp to see if there was any flexibility on cost, and between his surfing sessions, we started chatting – about Bocas, the project, and his experience growing up there. Turns out, Alex and I had actually met when we were teenagers. So I guess he’s not a complete stranger after all.
Alex wanted to help, gave us a great rate, and not only hosted half our crew but also ended up acting in the movie. He became a confidant, helping me navigate Bocas and offering tips on places to explore during our days off.
He embodies the spirit of Bocas that I love and wanted to capture in the film – adventurous, warm, laid-back, always down to kick back on the deck and watch the ocean. Without his generosity in securing beds for the crew near set, we would have hit a lot more bumps in the road while filming.
Also, his dog, Mancha, aka the Queen, became our official set dog – and even makes a few appearances in the film.
Travis
Two weeks before flying to Panama, we needed to find a new actor to play Drew, the husband of I Really Love My Husband. We were working with casting director Emma Fleming, and this was an all-hands-on-deck situation. Desperate, I sent out an SOS text to all my director friends.
Luckily, Jens Josephs – a former stranger-turned-friend I met at Dances With Films with my very first short – came through. “You should text Travis Quentin Young … He could be good,” he said.
So I did.
Travis auditioned, and just a few days before I flew out to Panama, we cast him. We saw so many talented actors, each bringing something different to Drew, but Travis gave a nuanced, layered performance that perfectly complemented Madison Lanesey’s portrayal of Teresa.
Not only did he agree to fly to Central America with a group of complete strangers, but he also turned out to be a total mensch – steady, reliable, and an absolute rock on set. Bringing in someone so mission-critical this late in the game felt risky and a little crazy, but with Travis, we hit the jackpot. Thank god he responded to my text!
Penny
I arrived in Bocas five days before shooting to prep with the producer Elle Roth-Brunet, D.P. Ryan Thomas, A.D. My-Hanh Lac and production designer Jessie Chaffin. Our unit production manager Anabel Gonzalez Reyes was also working as our fixer, helping us secure our final locations.
We had done everything we could remotely – if you want the full breakdown of production and prep, check out Ryan’s AMA – but we still had some key locations to lock. I had written mostly with locations I knew we’d have access to, but we still needed a restaurant and bar to shoot in.
This is where our superpower – having friends in the Bocas community – came into play again.
Just down the beach from our picture house, Penny Tom de Berdone owns two restaurants: Bibi’s, a gorgeous over-the-water spot with the freshest, most delicious piña coladas, and Coquitos, a beachside bar and pizza joint with cold beer and the best dogs. What I love about these spots is that you can find locals, expats and tourists all hanging out. That’s kind of what’s so special about Bocas in general.
Penny was generous enough to open her business to us, and we ended up shooting some of my favorite scenes at her restaurants. Bibi’s also became our go-to for craft services, keeping us armed with fresh, delicious food. What I didn’t realize until later was that a pivotal monologue from Teresa, the main character played by Madison Lanesey, is almost perfectly framed against a family photo taken in the exact same spot years ago!
When we held a private screening at the Carenero staple Aqua Lounge, the best feedback we got was that we had made a movie that felt true to Isla Carenero – the specific island we shot on. That meant everything. And we couldn’t have pulled it off without Penny opening up her restaurants to us.
Michael (and Jenna)
The origins of this film started in a workshop put on by the Gotham and taught by filmmaker Paul Harrill. In that class, which I took with the film’s producer Elle Roth-Brunet, we met filmmaker Michael Polk. Michael is one of those people you just want around. He’s kind and positive and curious. He’s a “yes and”-er and a doer. We ended up Zooming outside of the class while he was living in Brooklyn, where he’d recently relocated with his wife, Jenna Mackey.
When we told Michael we were going to make the movie, the first thing he asked was, “How can I help?” Michael had a background in editing, recently working in documentaries, and I remember feeling guilty telling him the one thing we needed help with — we had a very condensed timeline for post and needed an assistant editor to make proxies for our Amsterdam-based editor Christina O’Sullivan before she came out to California to edit with me. But as soon as I told him, he said, “Let me do that for you!”
Michael’s AE work was crucial, and once he wrapped, we kept in touch. Michael and Jenna became champions from afar, giving notes on cuts and connecting me with programmers at multiple festivals. They also moved back to Ohio to have a baby (Nora Willow, our first and only production baby), and started Lu Mac Productions.
They also knew I was in the process of fundraising to finish the film. Since we were losing our locations in Panama after that year, and had to shoot before the rainy season (you can hear more about how I wrote the movie to shoot in three months here), I went into production before having all the financing secured. I hoped that my background in ad sales would help me close the gap after which we were in post-production and had to keep pushing onward.
One day, I hopped on a Zoom with Michael and Jenna to catch up, and they shared how much they’d connected with the film, and wanted to support it even more — they wanted to come on board as co-production partners to help us finish financing the film!
What started as a chance meeting in a workshop turned into a real partnership – one built on trust, generosity and the shared belief that this film deserved to be seen. And our premiere at SXSW will be our first time meeting in person!
Raven
On a whim, I slid into Raven’s DMs. As the face of New 32 Productions, she had been on my radar for a while – I’d been following the company’s Instagram and was drawn to their approach to indie filmmaking.
Raven’s mindset resonated deeply, especially as I navigated the chaos of making this film. Here’s something she and her team had posted:
“Your best art doesn’t come from exhaustion. It’s not just about taking a nap or grabbing a coffee, either. It’s about giving your creativity space to breathe, prioritizing your energy and mental health so that your work can truly flourish.”
They watched the latest cut, along with a partner pitch deck outlining our vision and what we needed to finish the film.
From there, we met and talked through the project, and quickly realized we were aligned – not just in terms of filmmaking, but in our creative philosophy. Raven’s belief in sustainable, healthy filmmaking mirrored the way we had tried to operate throughout production.
Eventually, New 32 Productions came on as co-producers, securing additional funding that allowed us to fully complete the film. What started as a shot-in-the-dark message became one of the most meaningful partnerships in bringing this project to life.
Tony
I met Tony Gapastione at Sundance while I was working for No Film School and deep in the trenches of editing the film with our editor Christina. Tony is a director, actor, and the founder of BraveMaker, a Bay Area-based nonprofit that supports diverse voices in film through screenings, education and community-building.
Our interaction was brief, but since I’m originally from the Bay Area, I must have made an impression. A few months later, Tony reached out with an incredible offer: to host a private work-in-progress screening at the BraveMaker Festival. This meant I got to test-screen my movie in front of an audience – something I otherwise wouldn’t have had access to.
Watching the film with a room full of people, many of whom I didn’t know, was critical in shaping the final edit, score and overall feel. One moment, in particular, stood out – around the midpoint, there’s a fade to black. The only one in the entire film. Sitting in that audience, I felt in my body that the moment was too short. If I hadn’t experienced it with a crowd, I never would have realized we needed an extra beat there.
But Tony’s impact didn’t stop there. From that test screening, he helped us find finishing funds – money that went directly into our final sound mix and color. He was a stranger rallying other strangers to help us cross the finish line. And it worked!
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As independent filmmakers, we can’t make our movies alone or rely on standard resources – we know that, on average, it takes at least three years to bring a project to life. I wouldn’t have been able to finish I Really Love My Husband if I hadn’t asked for help, put myself out there and shared the project with others.
The most beautiful part of this journey has been watching strangers connect – whether with the idea, the film itself or the incredible work this team has done to make it happen.
And I guess the next stage will rely on strangers too – the audience who comes to see the film.
