Meet Monique Sorgen

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Monique Sorgen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Monique below.

Monique, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

Thank you for asking. I wasn’t always this optimistic. When I was younger, I was really worried about making ends meet– and I’m in a very difficult career, where even the most successful people are constantly paranoid about where their next job is going to come from and if they’re next job is going to come. But at some point, I sort of looked back over my life and I realized I’d been doing it for a long time, and I had always managed to get by somehow. While I hadn’t yet gotten the level of success I dreamt about in the beginning, I’d had a really good life so far. My business is fun and the people in it are creative and artistic, and you’re constantly getting exposed to new thoughts and ideas or working on something that brings you extreme amounts of joy. So, I realized that– and this is so cliche– happiness is about recognizing and enjoying the journey. I mean, you need to have a destination that you’re passionate about in order to stay on the road, so I’m just grateful that I love what I do so much. And I recognize how lucky I am to be on this journey even when things are challenging. I should mention another thing I do that really helps keep my stress levels low is living below my means. Once I realized that I was completely satisfied living a moderate life, then I knew I could continue to stay on this journey for as long as it takes and continue to pursue my dreams. It almost doesn’t matter anymore if I never get to the destination so long as I got to stay on the journey.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

So, I’m a filmmaker. Specifically, I’m a writer-director with a joyfully cynical voice and I like to tell stories about the challenges of being a woman in the world, usually from a comedic point of view.

I got into this business because my parents were activists who met and got to know each other protesting for civil rights, so I also wanted to change the world for the better. It seemed to me that movies and television had more influence on changing people’s hearts and minds than anything else out there because the cinematic arts are about touching the heart. So that’s what I love most about what I do. I get to tap into my heart and start conversations about the topics that mean something to me, and hopefully influence other people to open up their minds to perspectives they may not have thought about before they saw my work.

It’s also a great way to get things off your chest and work out some things you may not know the answers to until you write them into a story. So, I definitely use it for that and I’ve found that other people often can relate to what I’m saying and are inspired by the solutions I’ve drawn through my process. I’ve written a lot of stories about being a willfully independent single woman with no kids. I love women characters who are actively breaking the mold of tradition because it describes me, but also because I want to create a world in which women are allowed to make choices for themselves besides getting married and having kids. Women want and need the freedom to decide what their life is going to look like, and we don’t all feel comfortable with the traditional options.

Right now, I am working on a film about a couple of strangers, both in their 50s, both going through pivotal moments in their lives, who meet randomly on a hike and decide to hike together. They end up sharing a deep connection, and each helps the other figure out how to deal with the stuff they are currently working through. With this one I wanted to explore what it is to be in midlife because that period between “happily ever after” and the grave is so seldom explored in movies—even though that’s when the vast majority of life takes place. Some people are still looking for love. Some people have found love and lost it. And it shouldn’t be a time of hopelessness because people can fall in love at any age. And a lot of them do. But it’s just not represented, so I wanted to make this film as a beacon of hope for those people who aren’t in their ever after for whatever reason. This film also has spiritual undertones because I lost my father recently and I’ve felt like he’s been speaking to me and guiding me in unexpected ways. So, I wanted to explore the connection we all have to the parts of the universe that we can’t see. I wanted to explore the infinite nature of time and existence and the connection across planes… Anyway, the script has gotten a really positive response. It’s been advanced to the semi-finals of the screen craft film fund, so hopefully it will continue to go further because we’re in pre-production, and we’re planning to shoot the film in the fall.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Look, this is a tough business and the number one thing you need is to be good at what you do, whether that’s writing, directing, producing, or even being an assistant. Most people don’t come out of the womb good at everything about this, so you have to learn it. And to learn it you need to be an assistant, or an apprentice. You need to watch the people who came before you and you need to listen to them. They know stuff. So those who want to do well will recognize that they have something to learn. I hear a lot of stories these days about younger people who get triggered by feedback. And I find that disheartening because feedback— while hard to hear for everyone– yes, it is triggering– but it’s also the only way to learn anything. And if you want to get better at something you have to be willing to hear that everything you do is not automatically perfect from the jump. If you don’t have the experience, there may be things you can improve. And learning is always hard, but you have to commit to it if you want to get anywhere– in any career. So, I’d say listen, be willing to learn, and try not to take it personally when people have feedback that isn’t always 100% positive. Know that they’re trying to help you. not hurt you. If you listen that’s how you will gain the skills you need to succeed. That’s how you will get to the point where people are getting you positive feedback more often than not.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

As a filmmaker the one group you always want to reach out to are people who are interested in financing and supporting the arts. There are a variety of ways to support, like I have a fiscal sponsorship for my current project which makes donations to it 100% tax deductible, but people who are interested in financially supporting by investing in the arts are incredibly valuable too.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Erin Brown Thomas, Paula Rhodes, Josh Schnose, Elaine Collins, Julian Jankowski, Darryl Pugh, Marlon Royal Reid

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