What To Expect

After giving birth to her first child, a mother deals with her new identity, as she navigate life with her baby, her husband, and her loud and opinionated family.

Project type: Fiction Short
Project status: Development
Writer/Director/Producer: Gabriela Garcia Medina
Co-Writer/Producer: Vicki Syal
Casting Director: Alan Luna
Production Designer/Graphic Designer: Joshua Sankar
Costume Designer: Dagmarette Yen
Editor: Pieb Espinosa
Key Hair/Makeup: Ching Tseng
Cast: Jessica Marie Garcia, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Cheryl Umaña Bonilla
 
Website: gabrielagarciamedina.com

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Logline

After giving birth to her first child, a mother deals with her new identity, as she navigate life with her baby, her husband, and her loud and opinionated family.

Synopsis

PROLOGUE
After a long, difficult, and excruciatingly painful labor, ANA (35) gives birth to a healthy baby girl. Ana and SANDEE (34) are filled with joy, and love for their newborn baby ALOE (0)

ACT I
On the way home from the hospital. Ana is falling asleep. All she wants to do is sleep, rest and bond with her husband and new baby. Except….

ACT II
Once they arrive home, they’re greeted by their large and opinionated families. Ana’s mom GLORIA (60s), Ana’s sister SOFIA (23), Ana’s Aunt MIMI (40s) and her three diabolical kids CARMELA (9), EMILIO (8), and DIEGO (6), TIO-ABUELO TONY (70s), and Sandeep’s mom RESHMA (55), his dad RAJ (60), and Raj’s sister DEEPIKA (70s). Rather than being helpful to Ana, the family is creating havoc, and making Ana feel like she’s an inept mother. Despite Ana’s constant requests for everyone to leave, the family refuses remains..until Ana blows up, and they eventually leave.

ACT III
Peace and quiet at last for Ana, Sandeep. A moment, a breath of serenity, except the baby wakes up CRYING!

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Meet the Filmmakers

Gabriela Garcia Medina – Writer/Director/Producer
Gabriela Garcia Medina is a Cuban-American filmmaker. Her short film Little Con Lili (2019) won Best of Fest at HBO Women in Comedy Festival (2019), Best Short Contest NBC (2019), winner of LALIFF Best Short Film (2019), nominated for Best Short Comedy at Palm Springs ShortFest (2020), and is available on HBOMax. Gabriela’s short film The 90 Day Plan (2019), won Best of Fest at HBO Women in Comedy Festival (2020), Best Short Film – Powderkeg/Feigco (2020), acquired by WarnerBros OneFifty (2020), and is available on HBOMax. Gabriela’s musical comedy Bertie the Brilliant (2022) was made in collaboration with WarnerBros OneFifty and Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), premiered at the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts & Sciences, and will be distributed in 2023.

Gabriela’s feature film Little Con Lili is in development with Mandalay Pictures. Her romantic musical comedy Medio Summer is in development with Marc Platt Productions and MACRO. Her feature Miami Hustle, produced by Paul Perez (HBO’s Father of the Bride) is being made in collaboration with Exile Content Studios. Gabriela’s original 18-episode, podcast series Amores Y Mentiras (produced by Sonoro Media) will air on iHeart radio (in both English and Spanish) in 2023.

Gabriela is a Hedgebrook Screenwriting Lab fellow (2016), a Film Independent Directing Lab fellow (2020), Change the Lens TV Directing Lab fellow (2021), an Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts & Sciences Film Accelerator Lab fellow (2022). Gabriela received her BFA from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, with a major in Theater, and a double minor in Chicano/a Studies and African American Studies. She holds two MFA degrees from California Institute of the Arts.

Prior to being a filmmaker, Gabriela was a spoken word poet. She has performed at over 1000 colleges/universities and has opened the stage for artists including Pitbull, Mos Def, and the Black Eyed Peas, as well as for political figures including Kamala Harris, Maxine Waters.

Vicki Syal – Co-Writer/Producer
Vicki Syal is a Brazilian-Indian filmmaker/producer based in Los Angeles. Her 10-episode web-series, Pre-Production (2017), was an Official Selection in The Broad Humor Film Festival (2017) and a Semi-Finalist in the Los Angeles Independent Film Awards (2017). Her short Angie (2018), was an Official Selection at the Indie Night Film Festival, the Focus International Film Festival (2018), and it was an award-winner for the International Independent Film Awards (2018). Her short film Wonder (2019) was an Official Selection at the Golden State Film Festival (2019) and Flickfair (2022). Vicki produced El Chalino (2018) and La Campana (2018) both Official Selections at LALIFF (2019). La Campana went onto win the ICARO in 2019. Vicki produced The 90 Day Plan (2019), which won Best of Fest at HBO Women in Comedy Festival (2020), was official selection at LAAPFF (2020), official selection PBS LatinXperiene (2020), was acquired by WarnerMedia OneFifty, and is available on HBOMax. She also produced the musical comedy Bertie the Brilliant (2022) made in collaboration with WarnerMedia OneFifty and the Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) and will be available on HBO Max and PBS. Bertie the Brilliant premiered at the NFMLA In Focus: LatinX & Hispanic Cinema screening at the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, and Sciences. Vicki produced Science of Dreams, an online docs-series for Healthline, which was an Official Selection for the Indie Shorts Awards New York. (2022) Most recently, her short-film Stand-Out was an Official Selection in the Los Angeles Comedy Festival and the NFMLA.

Alan Luna – Casting Director
Alan Luna is a Casting Director for tv, film and animation. With over a decade of casting and development experience, Alan has collaborated on a number of projects with Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Studios, Disney Channel, Marvel Studios, and Nickelodeon. Some of Alan’s projects include Marvel’s Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Selena (Netflix), and Narcos: Mexico, Disney Channel’s Ultra Violet & Blue Demon and Under Wraps, HBO Max’ Circus.

Joshua Sankar – Production Designer/Graphic Designer
Joshua Sankar is a production designer, graphic designer, and writer. He has worked in the Art Departments of Marvel’s Wandavision (2019-2020), Hannah (Amazon 2019), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017), Ant-Man (2015), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), The Amazing Spider Man (2012), Django Unchained (2012), Bad Teacher (2011), Water for Elephants (2011) among others, he was Assistant Art Director on the new Tv movie Grand Hotel, for ABC (2019), and has worked as Production Designer on short films including Sam and Larry (2016), Family Pride (2012), and the youtube series Vinyl Rewind (2012-2015).

Dagmarette Yen – Costume Designer
Dagmarette Yen has worked in the costume department on feature films including Princess of the Row, Transformers: The Last Night, The Lego Movie 2, 13 Hours, and Magic Mike XXL. On television she’s worked on Atropia, Parker & the Crew, Family Reunion, Those Who Can’t, Loki, Grey’s Anatomy, Timeless, Scream Queens and Mad Men. She’s costume designed, and styled multiple music videos including Beyonce’s Haunted, Beyonce’s Superpower Niki Minaj Va Va Voom and Niki Minaj Stupid Ho. Her short films include The 90 Day Plan (2019), Little Con Lili (2018) among many others.

Dominique Espinosa Pieb – Editor
Dominique Espinosa Pieb is a Latinx editor and assistant editor. She grew up in the Bay Area and was exposed to the art of editing in middle school and made every excuse to incorporate that into school projects, and extra circulars. She attended De Anza Community College while in high school and earned her Associates Degree in Film/TV and then transferred to USC School of Cinematic Arts to receive her BA at the School of Cinematic Arts in Film and Television production. She loves to edit comedy, drama, and commercial content and has assisted on shows such as Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Netflix’s You, The CW’s The 100, and Katy Keene. She is currently on a Netflix / MACRO feature called They Cloned Tyrone. Dominique edited The 90 Day Plan (2020) on HBOMax, and Bertie the Brilliant (2022) sponsored by WarnerBros OneFifty and Latino Public Broadcasting.

Ching Tseng – Key Hair/Makeup
Ching Tseng is a prolific HMU artist. She’s got over 93 credits on IMDB. She’s worked on features including Eighty for Brady (2022), Edith & Harvey (2022), The Requiem Boogie (2022), Lion-Girl (2022), Psychic School (2022), Death Rider in the House of Vampires (2021), Rogue Hostage (2021), Magic Max (2020), Money Plane (2020), The Outsider (2019), This is our Christmas (2018) and so many more. Her television credits include: Married at First Sight (2022), Age of the Living Dead (2021), Reasonable Doubt (2021), Studio City (2020), The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead (2018), Medal of Honor (2018), Chernobyl: Zone of Exclusion (2017), Chronicles of Jessica Wu (2017) among many, many others. She’s done HMU on over 30 short films including Little Con Lili (2018, The 90 Day Plan (2019) and Bertie the Brilliant (2022).

Jessica Marie Garcia – Ana
Jessica Marie Garcia is a successful, prolific, and well known LatinX actress, and one of my personal creative muses. She’s been in shows including On My Block (Netflix), Go Off With Jess & Julissa, Diary of a Future President, How to Get Away with Murder, Betch, Hacking High School, Liv & Maddie and The Middle, among many others.

Keyla Monterroso Mejia – Sofia
Keyla is known for her role in The 90 Day Plan (2020) – HBO Max, Growing Fangs (2020) – Disney+, Curb Your Enthusiasm – HBO Max, Freeridge (coming soon) – Netflix.

Cheryl Umaña Bonilla – Tia Mimi
Cheryl Umaña Bonilla is known for her work on Vida (2020), Little Con Lili (2019), The 90 Day Plan (2020), and Bertie the Brilliant (2022).

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Contact

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