Tuesday night, me and a bunch of cooler, hipper people, packed into the Northwest Film Forum for the launch party of a fundraising campaign for Reckless Spirits, a very funny short film from 2022 that the filmmakers hope to turn into a feature film in the future. Directed by former NWFF executive director Vee Hua 華婷婷, the film is billed as “A gender-fluid Latine performance artist and a neurotic Asian American therapist are led by a series of uncanny circumstances into a world of chakras, spirits, and a fanatic cult leader.” It premiered as part of the Local Sightings Festival that year.

Having seen the short film, I found it hilarious. I wasn’t expecting to laugh out loud as much as I did. It follows two characters, Syd (Vico Ortiz) and Yvette (Dawn Anderson) who have some misadventures, including accidentally arriving at a cult ceremony. The short film is meant to serve as a sort of proof-of-concept, and also be the first 13, or so, minutes of the feature. It is a thirty-three day campaign that launched Tuesday night.

I asked Vee Hua 華婷婷 a few questions about the film and project (and I used some lines from the Q&A, with permission, for clarity).

Can I ask you about the genesis of Reckless Spirits?

We started brainstorming it in 2016 or 2017 and then I was still living in Los Angeles, and me and my co writer Lisa (Sanaye Dring) would say we’re both spiritual weirdos of sorts. However, there’s a lot to critique, and especially, living in LA, there’s a lot of fake shit. And I remember, a friend was doing tarot readings for a guru that cost, like, hundreds of dollars an hour. So really, it’s just wanting to speak about the new age-y type spiritual things that we both sort of believe in, but also critiquing the colonial co-option of spiritual practices from around the world, often to make a quick buck.

You said that Reckless Spirits is sort of autobiographical?

The characters are sort of like alter egos of me and my co-writer, so she’s like an actor and playwright, and I think I would be an actor-slash-performance artist if I had grown up perhaps more relaxed at a younger age.

I understand there’s going to be a big change in casting, from the original short.

We are doing a change in the cast. Dawn, who plays Yvette, is on again. We’re changing Syd from a Puerto Rican lead to a Mexican or Mexican-American lead. We’re looking for someone who fits that role, who’s non binary, who can act with physical comedy. If anyone has any ideas, we really need to cast that role, because I don’t think that actor will be available. They kind of blew up really huge and is now a massive queer icon.

And why is it important to film in Seattle?

it’s not often in a city like Seattle, where people who are queer or POC, are making projects at like the $600,000 or above level. So I just really hope to be able to make this here to kind of also show people that this kind of narrative project can exist here.

Initially you’re hoping to raise $100,000, of the projected $600,000, from this Kickstarter campaign, correct?

Yes. If you raise the first amount of funds, it shows people that you’re able to raise large amount of money right out the gate, and then theoretically, larger donors will be more willing to give larger sums of money and become an investor in the project. The main goal is 20% in this first five days, because when people see the money is flowing, people want to give more.

Money is important, but how can people help if they don’t have money to donate in the next 30-some days?

Yes, there definitely is. I think sharing it helps in any manner, in any form. I’m open to ideas on how I can promote it, because part of doing like a crowdfunding campaign is trying to put it out there every day and be interesting and not old. Trades are cool, like, some people working on the project are trading the hours so we don’t have to pay each other. That’s great. Airline mileage, hotel mileage, all these things, wonderful. I wish I had a less like bureaucratic answer. But your good wishes, your congratulations: I like that too,

You can learn more, and donate, to the Reckless Spirits campaign on Kickstarter, here. It runs through Sunday, December 22.