Two sisters at odds armed with a cookie jar of their father’s ashes take one last road trip with Dad to find the perfect place to say goodbye. When one threatens to smash the jar, they realize they have to learn a new way to live with each other — or risk losing their family forever.
NEARLY DEPARTED is a dramedy about two sisters at odds dealing with their father’s death. It illustrates the dark, trying, and funny ways grief manifests.
Charlie struggles to find a meaningful place to let their dad, Big Ed, go–and holds a secret preventing her from saying goodbye. Jules’ complicated relationship with their father haunts her as they try to give their dad the sendoff he deserves. Things come to a head in the Montana forest, as a desperate Charlie threatens to smash Big Ed’s urn.
Ashley Maria is an Emmy Nominated director & writer based in Los Angeles, CA. She is best known for her comedy/horror short “Friday Night Fright” which won a Directors Guild of America award and her breakthrough documentary “Pioneers in Skirts,” airing now on PBS, which follows her own journey to find solutions to overcoming systemic bias in our culture. Ashley is also a Blackmagic Collective fellow in their Filmmaker Advancement Initiative and just wrapped production on her next impact film “Super Human Anxiety,” which will launch in May 2024 for Mental Health Awareness Month. When not on set, Ashley is also a directing instructor at UCLA’s Film School and a sound instructor at the American Film Institute’s Young Women in Film program. An advocate for advancing women’s opportunities on set and off, Ashley takes her commitment to the next level by being a North American delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women – the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women. Since finding this passion for advocacy, Ashley now tells her stories through a sharper lens of equality, even creating a female serial killer in her new horror feature currently in development. Ashley has also grown as a leader through this advocacy work, taking note of the dreadful numbers of diverse representation in the film industry both in front of the camera and behind.
Writer - Molly Quinlan Artwick
