Mabel Nicholas Ma

Biracial Callie (Lexi Perkel) loves trees and plants and little else in Nicholas Ma’s debut feature. Surly with her parents and intolerant of people who don’t share her interest, she’s also unhappy about changing schools after her family relocates. But as luck would have it, substitute teacher Ms. G (Judy Greer) is starting a botany unit in science class, and Callie wangles her way in. Held rapt by Ms. G’s lectures and online speeches, Callie develops an experiment raising chrysanthemums in darkness and manages to lure Agnes, her ebullient younger neighbor, into working on the project with her. Precocious, determined, and wryly funny, Callie is a unique protagonist who leverages her love of botany to propel herself into adolescence.

CREDITS

Director: Nicholas Ma
Executive Producer: Jennifer Westphal, Joe Plummer, Bill Helman, John Boccardo, Derek Esplin, Duane Fernandez, Rebecca Fernandez, Clara Wu
Producer: Ben Howe, Luca Borghese, Helen Estabrook
Writer: Nicholas Ma, Joy Goodwin
Editor: Arturo Sosa
Cinematographer: Mark Jeevaratnam
Music: Tom Kingston
Cast: Christine Ko, Lexi Perkel, Quincy Dunn-Baker

SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS

 Biology

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EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES


Feature Films

A science focused teaching framework for short and feature films, all of which have received awards from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for their depictions of scientific themes or characters.