Project Involve Deep Dive: ‘Emergency’
We are rolling out some of our past Project Involve shorts to view online! These Project Involve shorts can now be seen on our Film Independent YouTube channel and are featuring them here on the blog with exclusive talks with the filmmakers. Applications for next year’s Project Involve are now open. This week we’re featuring Emergency, written by KD Dávila 2017 Project Involve Fellow.
Spring Break is the biggest week for students to travel, hang out with friends and family, and party. This one week is the home stretch before school wraps up where students can decompress and relax.
But this is not the case for everyone…
In Emergency, three college friends’ epic Spring Break party night spirals into chaos when they find an unconscious stranger in their apartment and, fearing how it will look to the police, must navigate racial tensions, moral dilemmas, and a frantic chase to get her to safety.
KD Dávila wanted to change the narrative in how films depict people of color when facing the police. “My family is Mexican-American, and I grew up with an understanding of how differently people in my own family (particularly the men) are treated by the police, depending on the color of their skin. I’m from Southern California, and it’s well understood that Black and Latino men here often face unfair profiling by the authorities,” KD said. “I think a lot of films about the subject tend to be full of misery and death, but I wanted to tell a story about the culture of fear of the police that exists in our communities— specifically the burden of kids who have to carry around this fear and anxiety that they’ll be seen as a threat because of the color of their skin. It’s a story of innocence lost… and it’s also a dark comedy.”
Knowing that comedy is riskier than drama, KD was skeptical about writing a story like this and how it would go over with her team. Producer Joenique C. Rose was very enthusiast about the project and understood the tone in ways others didn’t. Her director, Carey Williams, was down for the challenge as he had never directed anything like this before. “I think I really lucked out in being put on a highly collaborative team, because I know some directors aren’t as willing to allow the writer to remain part of the process after the script is complete,” KD said.
KD goes on to say, “Getting into Project Involve and making Emergency turned out to be one of the most significant choices of my early career. It gave me a community of artist friends and collaborators.”
Emergency was expanded into a feature film in collaboration with Temple Hill and Amazon, which was still directed by Carey Williams, written by KD Dávila, lensed by Michael Dallatore, and co-produced by Joenique C. Rose, which are all Project Involve Fellows. It starred Donald Elise Watkins, RJ Cyler, Sebastian Chacon, and Sabrina Carpenter. The feature screened opening night at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. KD Dávila was nominated for a Spirit Award for the script and can be streamed on Amazon Prime.
Since Project Involve, KD has worked in both film and TV. In 2022, she was nominated for an Academy Award for directing the short film Please Hold.
Reflecting on her time in Project Involve as a writer, KD said, “I think that experience of forcing myself to see things through a producer’s eyes has really helped me a lot. I try to ask myself how I can make the producers’ jobs easier, and to try to avoid including things that would give them a heart attack (unless it’s really worth it).”
Applications for the 2026 Project Involve program for both live-action and stop-motion animation are now open with a Non-Member deadline of July 14th. Members have until July 28th. Learn more about Project Involve here, and apply today.
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