Palm Springs, CA (The Hollywood Times) 8/19/26 – Some short films feel complete within their running time. Others leave you wanting to stay with the characters long after the credits roll. Sister Wives, written, produced and directed by Louisa Connolly-Burnham, who also stars in the film, did exactly that for me.
I had such a good time with Louisa today, spending time with her on Zoom for two separate interviews about Sister Wives and The Intimacy Coordinator. She is warm, thoughtful, funny and clearly deeply invested in every aspect of the stories she chooses to tell. By the end of our conversation about Sister Wives, I understood even more clearly why this film has connected so strongly with audiences.
Click below for our exclusive interview:
Louisa stars as Cadence in a story set within a strict polygamous religious community inspired by the FLDS, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. During our interview, she explained that the idea began after watching the documentary series Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey.
She became fascinated by households in which one husband might have many wives and began wondering about the emotional relationships that could develop among the women themselves.
“I kind of got thinking… as a queer woman, that if there is a house full of women, and only one man… how could he possibly make sure that every wife felt loved and cherished and taken care of physically, emotionally?” Louisa told me.
That question became the seed for Sister Wives. Louisa wondered whether women living together in those circumstances might turn to one another for companionship, affection and physical or emotional intimacy. After making the film, she heard from former FLDS members who told her that those kinds of relationships did, in fact, occur.
At the heart of the movie are Cadence and Galilee, two women whose bond slowly becomes something neither can ignore.
What moved me most is that Sister Wives does not reduce their relationship to a simple story of forbidden sexuality. It is about being truly seen by another person.
Louisa described Galilee as almost a source of light entering Cadence’s life.
“Galilee really sees Cadence for who she is, and she’s gentle with her, and patient, and allows Cadence to talk freely and be who she is,” Louisa explained. “These are two… souls, two hearts that meet each other.”
That relationship becomes strong enough to challenge everything these women have ever been taught.
“That love encourages them to… defy everything that they’ve ever known,” Louisa said. “I do really think that love sets them free in this film.”
That line gets to the heart of why the film works so beautifully.
There is repression here, certainly, but also loyalty, jealousy, fear, faith and the terrifying realization that freedom may require leaving behind people you once loved.
Connolly-Burnham’s performance as Cadence is beautifully controlled. So much is communicated through hesitation, silence and longing. The film never needs to shout about its themes because the emotional tension is already present in the smallest exchanges.
It is especially impressive considering how many responsibilities Louisa carried. She wrote, produced, directed and starred in Sister Wives. The project took somewhere between a year and two years of development, rewriting, research and preparation before cameras rolled.
“If you do the prep and you do the work and you really put the time in before you even get to set, it’s all kind of there, ready to be locked into,” she said.
That preparation allowed her to move between the creative demands of directing and the emotional demands of playing Cadence.
The film was shot in 2024, and its journey since then has gone far beyond what Louisa initially imagined. Sister Wives went on to be longlisted for the Oscars, BAFTA and BIFA and was acquired by Film4.
“It was beyond anything that I ever imagined, what happened with the Sister Wives short,” Louisa told me.
Perhaps most remarkable is that the film runs nearly 30 minutes, a difficult length in the short-film festival world.
Louisa knew that could present a challenge.
“A short film that long is a festival programmer’s nightmare,” she said. People encouraged her to shorten the film, but she resisted.
“There was nothing that I wanted to cut,” Louisa explained. “I felt to cut anything would… be destroying the heart of this film.”
I am glad she trusted herself.
The pacing is part of what makes Sister Wives work. The relationship needs room to breathe. We need time to understand Cadence’s world before we can fully appreciate what Galilee’s arrival means to her.
And now their story is getting considerably more room.
Sister Wives is being developed as a feature film with American Zoetrope, and Louisa shared some fascinating details about how the expanded version will deepen the characters rather than simply stretch the short.
The feature will explore Cadence’s relationship with her husband Jeremiah before Galilee arrives. Rather than presenting Jeremiah as an easy villain, the longer story will show that Cadence and Jeremiah once genuinely loved one another.
Louisa explained that Jeremiah himself is also affected by the expectations of their community and the pressure placed on men to procreate.
That makes Galilee’s arrival more complicated and ultimately more heartbreaking.
As Louisa described it, there is pain for everyone involved: Cadence, Jeremiah and Galilee.
The feature will also allow the romance between Cadence and Galilee to develop much more gradually.
“It is the ultimate slow burn,” Louisa said. “Everything is earned, everything is held and cherished.”
If everything goes according to plan, production is being targeted for the first quarter of 2027, and Louisa teased that another exciting announcement surrounding Sister Wives is coming very soon.
That news makes perfect sense after watching the short. Sister Wives feels like a doorway into a much larger emotional world.
Louisa also offered some valuable advice for independent filmmakers during our conversation. Making the movie, she said, is only part of the work. She traveled to festivals, met audiences, programmers and juries, and continued promoting the film throughout its festival life because she knew no one would advocate for the characters and story as passionately as she would.
“Nobody is going to root for you and your film and your characters and your script and story as much as you are,” she said.
That commitment is evident throughout Sister Wives.
For me, the film succeeds because beneath its unusual setting is something extremely universal: the longing to be understood by another person and the realization that sometimes love forces us to question everything we have been taught.
Cadence and Galilee’s love is quiet before it becomes courageous.
And that makes their journey all the more affecting.
After speaking with Louisa today, I am even more excited to see where she takes these women next. I certainly wasn’t ready to say goodbye to them after 30 minutes.
Thankfully, it appears we won’t have to.
Review: Highly Recommended
Sister Wives is an intimate, beautifully performed and emotionally intelligent examination of repression, freedom and the unexpected places where love can take root.
By Valerie Milano, Senior Editor, The Hollywood Times
