Céline Roustan
It’s Lulu’s father’s birthday, and as the guests arrive, she spends her time getting ready for the pool party. Until she sees Little Alex and his parents in the backyard and is instantly reminded of how he used to pee on her, when they were kids. With Golden Child, writer/director and lead actor Hannah Levin depicts a complex situation where a childhood trauma unexpectedly resurfaces and prompts the main protagonist to reclaim her power.
“The idea of someone peeing on another person, that was an event that could seem funny at first but then have real gravity”
Levin shared with us that her initial goal was to craft a narrative with “an arc of something moving from light to dark”. Wanting her film to start with a situation that could initially be brushed off as “weird” or “a funny anecdote”, she aimed to capture the process surrounding the realization of its darker ramifications. That’s when she came up with the idea of someone peeing on someone else: “an event that could seem funny at first but then have real gravity to it”.
She also confessed that the opening shot of the film was an image that “she kept thinking of”, adding “I was interested in that shot just as something I don’t typically see on screen”. Featuring a female protagonist, that shot also introduces a layer to the short focused on Lulu’s physical appearance and allows the film to “get into the conversation of the intersection of body and trauma”. Between the lingering childhood trauma, and the (not so) microaggressions of her parents’ comments on her bathing suit, Lulu begins the story with little agency over her body, with the rest of the film following her actions as she tries to claim it back.
Levin not only wrote and directed Golden Child, but stars as its central character Lulu
Opting to tell this story through a dark comedy approach, the tone of the film allows both the absurdity and the severity of the scenario to be explored. While the situation is indeed not comedic, it’s the response that can be “fraught with well-intentioned, misguided responses that are inherently comical”. In Golden Child, everyone is aware of what happened, yet Lulu is still forced to spend the afternoon in the vicinity of her perpetrator. This dynamic highlights how each character shows the different ways people can deal with this information and support (or not) the person coming forward. “Making Golden Child, I set out to examine how we respond to women coming forward in an accessible, funny, but real way”, Levin explained.
Given the multiple hats Levin wore when making the film, she knew from the start that she needed to surround herself with trusted collaborators. DP Ali Arminio and editor Chelsea Taylor (Tangles and Knots) strike the right tonal balance in the visual framing of the story and its pace, allowing the comedic beats to land while grounding the emotionally complex moments. It all comes together quite perfectly in the resolution of the film, with both the comedy and the empowering aspect being compelling and effective.
Ahead of its online debut, Golden Child had its World Premiere at the 2024 edition of the Aspen Shortsfest and went on to be selected at numerous other festivals. Levin is now “in the middle” of writing the feature version of Golden Child, while also working on a TV pilot and another short film.