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Screening at LA Femme Film Festival – Los Angeles Oct 17 – 10 AM *Tickets available on instagram @meet_nadine
By Valerie Milano
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 10/01/2025 – In a dazzling yet sobering homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood, writer/director Tash Ann’s Nadine, a web series pilot starring Grace Caroline Currey, delves into the glitter and the grit of 1950s Tinseltown. Screening at the 21st Annual La Femme International Film Festival (October 16–19, 2025, at Regal LA Live Theatre), the project is both a love letter to old Hollywood and an indictment of the suffocating control exerted by the studio system over its stars.
Set against the backdrop of 1950s Hollywood, Nadine follows an aging actress whose final performance becomes an act of rebellion when she realizes the studio intends to discard her after years of control and abuse. Ann’s direction draws heavily on her lifelong passion for classic cinema. “I have loved old Hollywood since I was a child,” she told me during our interview. “But I also wanted to highlight the ways women were treated then, and how many of those dynamics still echo today.”
Click below for our exclusive interview:
Ann’s words remind us that beneath the shimmering glamour of Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland was a darker reality: contracts dictating personal choices, “friends” doubling as spies, and stars pushed to the brink with medication and exhaustion. Nadine captures this dissonance, juxtaposing the glossy image with the harsh truth.
Currey, whose credits span Fall, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and Annabelle: Creation, gives a layered, haunting performance as Nadine. Ann revealed that the role was written with Currey in mind after the two bonded over old Hollywood while filming Fall. “What I watched her do on set was nothing short of miraculous,” Ann recalled. Currey’s portrayal fuses the fragility of Marilyn with the steeliness of Joan Crawford, her voice intentionally crafted to project strength even as her character struggles for agency.
The production itself mirrored its story’s themes of collaboration and resilience. Funded through Kickstarter, the project attracted over 425 backers before cameras rolled. Producer Chris Polczinski described the effort as both grueling and rewarding: “We put a lot of legwork in, but it also built us a fanbase from day one. People weren’t just watching the film when it premiered, they were invested in it from the start.”
That early support helped secure sponsorships from Joseph of Hollywood and Besame Cosmetics, while cinematographer George Su meticulously recreated the feel of the 1950s with authentic lighting, vintage lenses, and a richly atmospheric palette. The result is a work that feels both era-true and emotionally modern.
As Ann explained in our discussion, guiding her cast through a period piece meant grounding performances in humanity rather than caricature. “We wanted the characters to exist as people first,” she said, “not stereotypes of the time.” This choice makes Nadine resonate beyond its historical frame, particularly as it draws connections to contemporary conversations around #MeToo, power, and exploitation.
The climax has already prompted festival audiences to cheer, Ann noted, but what excites her most is the possibility of inspiring younger viewers to reflect on cycles of control and resistance. “The key to changing the future is understanding the past,” she told me.
While Nadine screens as a 30-minute pilot at La Femme, Ann and Polczinski have their eyes set on expanding it into a limited streaming series. The longer format, they explained, would allow them to explore the rise of tabloid culture in the 1950s, when studios shifted from protecting their stars’ reputations to deliberately exploiting scandal to sell tickets. “It’s an overwhelmingly rich topic,” Ann said, hinting that the current pilot may eventually land as a midpoint in the broader arc of the series.
More than just a period drama, Nadine is an act of reclamation—of stories long buried beneath Hollywood’s golden sheen. It is a film that confronts the cost of stardom, the silencing of women’s voices, and the power of speaking truth against a system built to suppress it. Screening at La Femme, a festival dedicated to amplifying women in film, feels especially fitting.
As Ann told me with emotion: “Everything I believed I could do is because I saw women before me do it. If Nadine inspires just one person to tell their story, then we’ve done our job.”
For more on the project, visit meetnadine.com or follow on Instagram at @meet_nadine.
