Genre
Synopsis
Have you ever felt anxious? Like, it’s all you can do to not totally freak out right now? Yeah? Us too. You are not alone, and neither is Whitney, but she still feels that alone feeling. Until today. Whitney is 17 and a new student at the Woodward High Boarding School in Upstate New York. What you don’t know – and neither do her fellow classmates – is when Whitney’s anxiety comes out, she gets strong. Like - she’s going to break everything in her path until she’s free - strong. SUPER HUMAN ANXIETY will explore generalized anxiety through the eyes of these two super heroes who have to hide their powers from the world, yet their anxiousness makes it nearly impossible! At the end, they’re happy to find each other, and Ms. Sweetly sees this as an opportunity for her to step up and be the mentor she needed when she was Whitney’s age.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can even help superheroes!
Bio
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.
Credits
Lead - Plastic Martyr
