Sydney Jean is an 18-year-old lesbian filmmaker who’s trailer for her upcoming film, Rebelle, has over 8 million views. Jean sat down with us to talk about her journey and aspirations for the future.
Rebelle is a movie about two girls in a dystopian future, one who is the leader of a worldwide revolution to take down a corporation that rules their world, and the other who is her bodyguard. They fall in love as they fight in the revolution and change the world along the way. Jean says she was inspired to make Rebelle because she noticed a lack of lesbian representation in film and decided to make her own.
Continue reading below to learn more about Sydney Jean Films.
Tell me about yourself. How did you get started with your movie? What was the inspiration behind it?
I’ve been an aspiring filmmaker since I was around nine years old, so filmmaking always just came naturally to me. The idea for my movie just popped into my head one day almost four years ago, when I was 14. I was working on a Sailor Moon-themed web series deliriously at 5:30 in the morning when all of a sudden, I came up with this idea about two girls, a rebel leader and her bodyguard, who fall in love as they fight in a revolution to change the world.
I immediately fell in love with it and started spending a lot of time on it, even writing six drafts in one year and making a proof of concept with my American Girl dolls based off of an early draft! I even got it considered by people in Hollywood to make it a real movie when I was 16, but I was rejected on the assumption that the movie probably wouldn’t have an audience. I was so hurt that I got depressed and couldn’t write, but I decided to keep on going, and that was when I started my TikTok account and gained millions of views and thousands of followers for the concept!
What are you most excited about for the future of your movie?
I just finished the rough draft for what I hope to be the final version of the screenplay before I submit it again, and I’m going to start rewriting and editing next week. I am very excited to hopefully bring this movie to the world and show the world what a dystopian blockbuster with lesbian protagonists could look like, in addition to having people fall in love with the lore and my characters even more so than they have already and see it all come to life!
What does your “perfect day” look like?
Waking up early and writing, doing some research for my film career, maybe directing a few short videos, hanging out with my American Girl dolls, and ending the night in bed binge-watching Miraculous Ladybug.
What are your plans for the future?
I will graduate high school at the beginning of June, and I am going to university for Motion Picture Production in August, where I hope to further my knowledge about filmmaking and practice my directing and screenwriting skills. I am starting to develop a second script to occupy myself with once Rebelle is all done, and as for Rebelle, I hope to get a producer and studio interested so I can make the movie a reality!
How did you get started as a doll blogger? What about it inspires you?
I was just bored one day when I started my American Girl doll blog, and I didn’t expect it to go anywhere, but now I’ve been doing it for a near-decade and it’s a pretty big deal in the American Girl world! My dolls and my blog inspire me because the dolls are all about female empowerment and seemingly-average girls in history making their mark just by being themselves, which is pretty important to have a dose of when you’re in a male and heteronormative industry trying to break through the doors with a movie literally about lesbian teens saving the world!
What is your favorite thing about your work?
My favorite thing about my work is that it inspires people. There were times in my life where things were rough, like when my parents divorced and when I was depressed, and I only made it through because of other people’s work, and watching Sailor Moon back when I was a closeted middle schooler showed me that it was okay to be who I was. I have gotten messages from people saying that they came out as lesbian or nonbinary or things like that because my movie showed them that they were able to be confident in themselves as part of the LGBT community, or that watching Rebelle one day is one of the reasons why they’re still living, and that knowing the movie is coming has made them happier. If I could tell myself when I was 14 and just starting this journey that I would be able to do the same thing that Pleasant Rowland or Naoko Takeuchi did for me for others by the time I was 18, then that would be all the encouragement I’d need to take this thing to the next level.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
You can follow me at @rebellemovie on TikTok and Instagram, and my personal account on Instagram is @sydneyjeansatalino! Also be sure to visit my IMDB page!
