Stephanie Turner Wearing Many Hats in First Feature Justine

When my review came out, Daisy, who played Justine, actually reached out to me cause I mentioned, I couldn’t tell if she really had Spina Bifida or not, but she did such an amazing job, and you know, did she have to go through a lot of research in terms of portraying Justine?
She and her mom did research on Spina Bifida. I don’t know if she shared this with you, but she does have an autoimmune disorder and a muscular disorder. It’s like a rare kind of, I think, genetic mutation. And so she is homeschooled and related to the character of Justine. She sent a message when she submitted her tape for the audition and said, you know, I really relate to this character because I also feel isolated, and I’m homeschooled, and I don’t get to spend time with other kids a lot. And so I think that was an added element of her portrayal of the character. She really does feel a lot of the same things as Justine. She was really great. She took it all very seriously. And I think her connection with the character was so strong that she really felt like she wanted to share her story in a truthful way.

At what point did Ava DuVernay’s Array come in and see your film and then begin talking to you about distribution?
So yeah, we submitted to festivals. We decided to premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival. And in that process of submitting, we had asked Glynn Turman, who plays Papa Don, if he would share the film with Ava DuVernay because I knew that they work together. And at that point, I had my producer hat on. It was all about sharing Justine with as may people as possible and see if people like it and get people excited about it. Also, see if we can find champions for our movie or people that will help us kind of get it out there and spread the word. And so I asked him to share it with her. Then, Ava was in the middle of producing When They See Us for Netflix, and she told Glen I can’t watch it right now because I’m in the middle of doing my show, but I promise you, I’ll watch it.

“…see if we can find champions for our movie or people that will help us kind of get it out there and spread the word.”

And to her credit, and I’m so thankful that she did. She actually watched it. It was maybe a couple of months or something after we sent it, but she actually watched it.  And you know your positive review helped too because that was out there. I know Glen was sharing that on social media. I think that was the right time for us because things kind of started to fall into place. Your positive review, I think, was a help, and contributed to that. And so Ava watched it, and we started our conversation from there and she really, you know, responded to the film and thought it would be a good fit in her catalog of film.

I just remember seeing this is such an amazing small indie film, and it’s at that point you hope someone’s gonna see your film. There are these indie treasures that just get lost in thee shuffle. I wonder what happened to Justine wonder what happened. And I’m so glad things worked out. I’m glad to see it’s coming to Netflix.
Yeah. Thank you. I mean, it’s really I could have asked for was to be able to put the movie out there where people could access it and see it. And Netflix is just such an amazing place for that. You know, it’s really at people’s fingertips and for me to be able to say, “you should check out my movie, it’s on Netflix,” is pretty amazing.  As you said, the small indie movie, a lot of the times, you don’t know what happens to them. And now it’s going to be out there.