LOGLINE

Driving through the Mojave Desert, Frankie and her daughters encounter unfriendly strangers. The girls’ fixation with Westerns and outlaw tales quickly spirals into real danger.

SYNOPSIS

On a family trip into the Mojave Desert, young mother Frankie and her two daughters encounter strangers on the road. The girls’ obsession with Western movies, fantasy books, and outlaw tales gets all of them into trouble.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

Lily Cunningham Perini is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and sound mixer raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Since childhood, she’s been obsessed with myths of the Wild West and California’s role in it—frontier towns, railroads, vigilantes, cowboys, guns. These days, she makes work that interrogates this fixation. In her 2023 hybrid film, Against Horizons, she figures her mother’s road trip across the country in the 90s as a settler striking out west. Through old diary entries, Lily explores her mother’s desires, contradictions, and departures without which she would never have been born. “Highwaymen” continues to explore coastal obsessions with the American West; the allure of playing cowboys, being outlaws, remaking yourself on the frontier. What happens when it is no longer a game?

KEY CREW

Lily Cunningham Perini - Director, Co-Writer

Lily is a director, producer, and sound mixer based in Brooklyn, NY. She co-owns and operates Wild Shape Sound, a post sound studio in Ridgewood Queens. Her work in sound has taken her to sets across the country and the world: from Arizona to Chile and Egypt. She has produced commercials and digital ads in LA and sound designed films that premiered at Tribeca, BFI Flare, and Aspen Film Festivals. She graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Art, Film, and Visual Studies, where she won the Chris Killip Award for superior work in lens-based media for her thesis film Against Horizons.

Nathan Baron-Silvern - Co-Writer

Nathan is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York. His most recent work Invasive Species (2023, Annie Ning) premiered at Palm Springs International ShortFest, and was featured at Raindance FIlm Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival, and Slamdance Film Festival.

Lily Weisberg - Producer

Lily Weisberg is a director/producer with a B.A. in Humanities from Yale. She was twice awarded the Wallace Prize, the most prestigious independently awarded writing prize at Yale. Her short films have been selected for the Montclair Film Festival, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, NewFilmmakers NY, and the Mystic Film Festival (Best Student Director Award). Her most recent short film Working Summer premiered on Directors Notes and NoBudge, where it was named one of the Films of 2024. Along with Michael Bloom, she co-founded and produces a contemporary silent film initiative on Mama Farm.

Michael Bloom - Producer

Michael Bloom is a producer/writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He is currently producing the feature documentary “Living History” with Pacho Velez and Fred Hechinger. He also co-founded and co-produces a modern silent short film initiative with Lily Weisberg. Michael’s first feature script received the Akiva Goldsman prize in screenwriting and was a semi-finalist at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Michael is also an alumnus of the Johnny Mercer Writer’s Grove.

Tessa Lee - Casting Director

Tessa is a director, producer, and casting director based in Los Angeles, CA. She currently works as a casting associate at Taylor Williams Casting. Taylor Williams most recently cast Good One (Sundance 2024, Cannes Directors Fortnight), The Front Room (A24, 2am Films, Two & Two Pictures), and Omni Loop (2am Films).