Tina Kakadelis
To find someone who gets you is a lucky thing, but it’s the sort of kismet that has to happen every single day with independent filmmaking. For writer/director Jamie Kiernan O’Brien, director of photography Sophie Syed, and producer Kirsten Pasewaldt, the connection came by chance through their graduate school program and paved the way to their SXSW-selected short film, Gender Studies.
“Sophie and I were randomly paired together in our first year,” O’Brien says.
“I would say that it’s not random, that it’s highly curated,” laughs Syed.
“We were kind of, in a way, forced to work together at first, and then we slowly realized it could be something more and could extend beyond that one film school project,” adds O’Brien. “Kirsten and I slowly became friends through that first semester as well.”
“During the second semester, you get to pick a group to work with. The three of us were sitting in a room and we made a joke, laughed about something, and Kirsten went, wait, I think we should all group together,” continues O’Brien. “Kirsten’s one of the best producers I’ve ever met, and it’s abundantly obvious that she’s gonna produce everything and she should be on every set ever.”
“Sophie’s so multi-talented. I was watching her shoot a film in our first year of film school, and I think the biggest thing I felt was that not only did it look great, but she had a lot of skills that I feel I lack visually,” explains O’Brien. “I knew that, obviously, we would be friends, but that was a moment of, oh, she might be able to fill in gaps I know I have, which I think is important for these kinds of close collaborations.”
“In terms of the friendship, we’re just always together,” laughs O’Brien.
“The friendship, I would say, came first,” offers Pasewaldt. “You don’t realize this at the moment, but you gravitate toward certain people because of a similar work ethic and similar taste. Jamie and Sophie knew each other first, and when I met them I wanted to be their friend. Then I became exposed to their work and realized I wanted to be involved. It’s like, you get to know them as people and then you want to support anything you do. The friendship actually comes first, which is maybe why we’re able to stay friends through work.”
“I also kind of think that the friendships/artistic collaborations that last, and I’m speaking from the context of this MFA that we’ve all done together, are maybe not just based on shared values or your ability to have fun together, but also on your ability to move through the hard things,” offers Syed.
“Most relationships that don’t go the long haul, it’s for that reason,” continues Syed. “I feel like there are a lot of people you can connect to when things are good, you know? I feel like we have an ability to look after each other even when things are bad. Things just inevitably go wrong in this business and in life in general. I think what I see as the strength of our relationship, both personal and professional, is that the way we handle the hard things is aligned and allows us to move forward pretty quickly.”
Gender Studies is a film about jealousy seen through the eyes of trans college student Maisie (Jake Junkins), who idolizes a girl in her class named Rachel (Fannie Massarsky). The more Maisie watches Rachel, the more she wants to emulate her.
Junkins is a newcomer to the trio of O’Brien, Syed, and Pasewaldt. She isn’t part of the program, so she came onto the set of Gender Studies that was built on the strong foundation of this friendship group. She described the experience as one where she felt “lucky.”
“These girls have brought me into the fold and I feel like we all have a really, really close connection,” says Junkins. “It’s rare for an actor to have a set like this. I haven’t really worked on something like this where I’ve built such strong relationships with my collaborators. This definitely was a special one for me.”
In the spirit of collaboration, it was a note from Pasewaldt that came early in O’Brien’s screenwriting process that altered the narrative arc of the short. Both Pasewaldt and O’Brien credit, in part, the structure of their film program that encouraged close collaboration between the two friends.
“The nature of the program is that we’re with each other from the ideation process through writing, workshopping, everything. Six days a week, sometimes twelve to fifteen hours a day,” explains Pasewaldt.
“Jamie and I were spending time together over the summer, going into second year knowing this project was coming,” continues Pasewaldt. “We’re taught to think critically about each other’s scripts. So much of the amazing feedback I get is actually from our classmates. Jamie had an original idea that was about a trans kid running on a track, and we were just like, we don’t feel the passion with this.”
“We’re in an environment where everyone is giving us thoughts all the time,” adds O’Brien. “Professors and peers. The people who end up becoming collaborators are the people whose notes land, you know? The biggest thing I’ve learned in the past few years is when to take a note. A big thing for me is getting extremely excited by a note and being like, oh my god, that unlocks something so much more exciting.”
“Gender Studies started as a different idea of a love triangle with a trans girl and two boys,” O’Brien goes on. “Kirsten and I were chatting and I said, the short’s about how one of the boys doesn’t know she’s trans and is sleeping with her. It’s about the feeling of a weird gender euphoria of being objectified like a cis girl instead of being fetishized. Kirsten was like, I feel like I want to meet the cis girl then.”
“That was the note, and I was like, okay, that’s cool,” says O’Brien. “What I really appreciate about that note is that it opened up a whole story of envy and competition between women. I didn’t realize I cared about that theme so much until I made this short, and then it kind of kept popping up. It wasn’t like I was thinking I needed to make a film about that. It was just that the characters kind of popped up first and now I’ve fallen in love with it as a theme.”
So much of the concept of womanhood lies in the perception of others. A woman’s worth is often filtered through society’s gaze in a way that creates jealousy in female relationship dynamics. In Gender Studies, the character of Rachel is seen as an ideal that Maisie is chasing. For the women in front of and behind the camera of the short, through making the film, they’ve had a lot of time to mull over envyt as it pertains to young women.
“When I was writing it, I was thinking a lot about a few different women who have popped up throughout my life,” says O’Brien. “The only difference between this film and my real life is that normally, Rachel has been my best friend.”
“Growing up, and in so many different stages, there’s always been that person who, I felt, had everything I didn’t. They were a reflection of my own insecurities in a way,” continues O’Brien. “I think it’s been very healing to work through it in the sense that I spent a lot of my life punishing myself for feeling that way, instead of being comfortable that that’s part of life. It’s one of the uglier emotions that pops up sometimes, but the second you acknowledge that it’s normal, it gets a lot smaller.”
“I totally agree,” adds Junkins. “Honestly, I don’t think it changed my perception or thoughts about envy. I think it reinforced them. It’s affirming to work on something like this where these feelings aren’t something you have to shy away from or be ashamed of because I think we’ve all had a Rachel. We’ve all had moments when we’re Maisie. I certainly have, and I connected to that when I read the script. I think it’s something every woman goes through.”
Maybe your Rachel doesn’t look like the one in the film. Maybe, speaking from personal experience, she’s Adam Brody’s character from The O.C. Whoever it may be, there is power in acknowledging them, but also in seeing them as the layered, self-conscious person they also are.
“That’s one of the most exciting things about the film,” Junkins goes on. “I think these are feelings we’re supposed to keep close to our chest and shy away from, and it’s nice to explore that.”
“If you draw attention to the cultural circumstances that make individuals, particularly women, act in these ways, rather than blaming each other, it’s like we’re all victims to a culture that is forcing us into competition and comparison,” Syed offers.
A recurring theme of filmmakers at this year’s SXSW is that many directors are also stepping into the editing suite. For some, it’s out of necessity due to the budgetary concerns that exist in indie filmmaking. When O’Brien decided to edit Gender Studies, it came from a place of comfort…and budget.
“I worked as a freelance editor for a while before school. I’ve always had a hand in post-production,” states O’Brien. “Also because of money, and honestly, I’m a bit of a control freak.”
“I think some of it comes from the way my brain works, especially from a directing standpoint,” O’Brien goes on. “When I’m directing, I’m thinking so, so much about the edit. I really shoot for an edit a lot of the time. I see exactly how it’s going to all cut together. In the program, they really, really teach us editing and are adamant that you do the first pass yourself to become a better director.”
“You need to confront your mistakes, and the edit is where you do that,” Syed jumps in.
“For me, editing feels like where the film actually gets made. The production is crafting puzzle pieces, and then you get to put them together in the edit,” O’Brien picks up. “I’ve passed things off to editors before and felt a little bit severed from some sort of creative process. It’s on the exact same level of working with the actors. I need to be on the same level, I guess, because that’s equally where a film is constructed and made.”
The relationship between cinematographer and director is one of the most important ones on the set. So much of the role of the director of photography is to find a way to translate a director’s ideas into a camera. For Syed, the process and relationship begin with the references.
“One of my favorite parts of the DP role is watching a director’s references. Jamie and I mostly did that together, which was really fun,” smiles Syed. “We basically just watched all her favorite movies and then spoke about them.”
“Then we did a test shoot. We were already passing photographic, fine art, and film references back and forth,” explains Syed. “Then we did this test shoot with Jake and another actor. That was when I really understood what we were making. Honestly, I feel that Jake’s performance really influenced the tone. There was something about seeing her face on screen and being behind the camera that I was just like, oh, I understand what we’re doing.”
“The instinct in that test shoot was to make the shots wide,” recalls Syed. “The more I looked at her, the closer I wanted to get. That also influenced the next iteration of the aesthetic development. We want to stay really close to Jake and create that feeling of claustrophobia. The camera was mostly on sticks, but not locked off, with a fluid head. Every little movement she does, I respond to in the tiniest way. I feel like that gives her character a lot of power.”
Gender Studies premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and had its Texas premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival. These two festivals are quite different, but not just in temperature and locale. The audiences are distinct in their own right. Something that united the two, though, was that the crew was looking for a little more laughter.
“We wanted people to laugh more!” exclaims O’Brien. “And we’ve kind of been in the screenings where everyone’s, like, this is actually quite sad and dark. I love films that make you question whether or not you’re supposed to be laughing. There’s an unease to it. At Sundance, when really no one laughed, I was like, damn, what is that? I talked to my mom about it and I was like, well, I always say I like films that make me feel uneasy and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to laugh. So I was kind of like, oh, it’s the consequences of my own actions.”
