B-girl, a critically acclaimed 12-minute short film from sisters Emily and Elizabeth Dell, is being developed in to a full-length feature.
The film centers on a young female breakdancer named Angel and the world of underground Hip-Hop.
Since its late 2004 release, the short has received raves from filmgoers who connected with the film’s story and dance sequences, thereby prompting the women to expand their project into a bigger vehicle.
“In 12 minutes, you can show amazing dancing, but it’s very hard to show amazing people. And a feature gives you a chance to really find out about a group of people and who are they and how they move and how they behave with each other. How they suffer, how they recover,” Elizabeth Dell, the film’s producer told AllHipHop.com. “It’s a chance to really fall in love with characters as opposed to just watching dancers.”
B-girl’s full-length version will feature the cast of the short, including star and renowned breakdancer Jules “Lady Jules” Urich and actress Drew Sidora ( Never Die Alone, White Chicks ).
“Her character is another B-girl,” said Emily Dell, the film’s director, of Sidora’s role. “Drew herself, she’s not a dancer. Her character is someone who doesn’t dance in the movie, but who is important in the community. She plays someone who over the course of the movie becomes good friends with Angel, which is the lead character’s name, but they have a little bit of a tough love. At first, they’re not friends.”
While the feature will involve hours of work, Elizabeth revealed the experience will be easier compared to creating the short.
“It was difficult in the beginning with the short film to introduce ourselves to this world and to be understood, where we were coming from,” Elizabeth revealed. “We spent a lot of the time we were working on the short film building that reputation in this community. When it came time to do the feature, we weren’t starting over again. We were growing on relationships that were already built.”
Despite getting respect from the breakdancing community, the women had to dispel misconceptions of the film for those unfamiliar with the culture.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve told someone who is not involved in this film, but who want to be involved in this film that we’re doing this breakdancing movie,” Elizabeth explained. “They say ‘Oh yea, like the 80’s? Is this a period movie? Oh cool. The 80s were fun.’ And I say ‘No. Really, this is a new thing. This is a contemporary movie. This is now. They’re doing amazing stuff.”
Unlike the short, which cost just under $20,000 to make, the new film will be 90 minutes to two hours in length and is estimated to cost close to $1 million.
Shooting begins in the fall in Los Angeles. The film is slated to hit theaters in summer 2007.
“It’s really about overcoming fears and embracing who you are. And in this case, it’s about a woman embracing who she is as a dancer, as a B-girl,” Emily said. “But I think that’s a theme that anyone can relate to universally.”
For more information on B-girl, visit www.bgirlmovie.com.