Dragonfly began with three women and a Facebook post.

Cara was an actor who wanted to start creating her own work. Maribeth was a documentary filmmaker ready to dive into narratives. Mim was a broadcast commercial producer looking for a challenge. Individually, the idea of making a movie was crazy, but together it looked like they might just have the perfect combination of skills. So Cara pitched Maribeth and Mim her idea for a short film she wanted to write and Dragonfly was born.

Dragonfly explores the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter as they try to reconcile their turbulent past in order to make the most of their present. As mothers and daughters themselves, Cara, Maribeth, and Mim wanted to portray the true complexity of the mother/daughter dynamic.  Making sure that both the characters and their relationship felt authentic, complex, and three-dimensional was extremely important.

So what began as a 10-minute short film soon became a full-fledged, 90-page feature film script.

In order to bring their story to life, Cara, Maribeth, and Mim each reached into their networks, and their friends’ networks, and their friends’ friends networks in search of insanely talented people willing to work crazy hours on a tiny indie film budget. The results were stunning.  

The cast and crew for Dragonfly soon became a who’s who of the Midwest’s brightest talents and rising stars, both on and off screen.

As more and more people came on board, Cara, Maribeth, and Mim realized a very cool thing: they were three women at the helm of a feature film, something that almost never happens.

In 2013, women accounted for a mere 16% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors. Crazy, right?
In contrast, Dragonfly’s screenwriter, directors, executive producers, three main characters, production designer, editor, animator, and assistant director were all women. Suddenly, making this movie began to take on greater significance.  When all was said and done, Dragonfly proudly achieved true gender equity with a 50/50 split of women and men for both its cast and crew.

Dragonfly is also a bit of a love letter to the city of Minneapolis.  Cara, Maribeth, and Mim wanted audiences to get a real look at the smart, amazing, lake-loving coolness of their hometown. 95% of all shooting for Dragonfly took place in Minnesota and its soundtrack also exclusively features Minnesota artists including Cloud Cult, The Ericksons, Spirit of Orlando, and John Hermanson. From beginning to end, Dragonfly was produced entirely in Minneapolis, the nicest city in the country to make a film.