They say to make what you know.
I know about marriage. I know about depression. I know about loss. I know about living a good, simple, meaningful life. And I know that they’re all deeply connected.
In 1997, when I lived in New Jersey, I met my husband. And we have been together ever since. In a long relationship everything ebbs & flows. Sometimes, we turn into our marriage, into one another and sometimes we turn away and into ourselves. Sometimes the turning into ourselves goes on for too long. Ideally you always come back to one another. But it is never guaranteed.
It’s not something I really ever talk about but I’ve lived with depression my whole life. So I know intimately what it feels like to get stuck in the depths. How now can feel like forever and forever can feel like way too long. How hard it is to pull yourself out.
What I have learned is that connection is always the answer. That reaching out and taking time to build something new - new moments and new memories - is how we move forward. Our losses, never forgotten, become foundations that give gravity to our futures.
SUBLETTING is a way for me to share a little bit of that meaning at a time when it feels like it might really be needed.
Jen McGowan is a film & tv director based in Los Angeles. Intimate connections between strangers is a theme that recurs in her work across drama, dramedy and genre which consistently features both epic visuals and intimate performances.
Her recent film, RUST CREEK, was released theatrically by IFC Midnight and hailed as “the feminist thriller Hollywood needs right now” by Harper’s Bazaar. It became a breakout hit on Netflix premiering at #3 in the US, staying in the top ten for over a week and making the top ten in 40 countries. It is certified “fresh” (84% on Rotten Tomatoes).
McGowan’s debut feature, dramedy KELLY & CAL (Juliette Lewis & Cybill Shepherd), premiered at SXSW where it was nominated for the Audience Award and she won the Game Changer Award. It was released theatrically by IFC Films to rave reviews.
In episodic, her work has contributed to seasons that have garnered a Peabody, HPA and Saturn awards. Credits include: multiple episodes of Star Trek:Discovery and Titans and episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Purge.
McGowan studied Acting in the BFA program at NYU (Atlantic Theater) and Directing in the MFA program at USC. She holds a global talent work visa in the UK.
For me, the visual concept of this SUBLETTING is “the re-introduction and addition of life”.
To that end I imagine the images very subtlety evolving from darker and distant, from a perhaps rigid stillness withframing isolating each of our characters in their own spaces to a slight looseness, increase in light and ever so delicateexpansion and vibrancy of color. From cooler to warmer. A progression from bleakness to life.
I want to feel a patina of life in every image, every location, every prop. I want to celebrate the tiniest moments withdeliberate thoughtfulness.
With the following images I hope to convey not so much a precise visual palette but a feeling of simplicity, naturalism,solitude, unpretentiousness and quiet. We will capture the beauty of what lasts. Love.
SUBLETTING will express and invite reflection, contemplation, connection.
Victory Media Group, founded by Jai Khanna, is a global producer and financier of premium content across film and television. Since its inception in 2023, Victory has quickly produced a critically-acclaimed slate of programming, including the Emmy nominated TNT documentary “The Great Debate with Charles Barkley.” Khanna has also produced a number of features, including Hulu’s “Four Good Days,” featuring Academy Award Winner Glenn Close and Mila Kunis, Amazon’s “Black Bear,” starring Aubrey Plaza, and “Prisoner’s Daughter,” featuring Golden Globe Winner Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale.
