Meet Us

Taylor Coriell (writer/director)

A redhead who hails from Kentucky, TAYLOR CORIELL (she/her) is a bicoastal writer, director, and award-winning filmmaker. She was a Finalist for the Humanitas New Voices Fellowship 2022, Atlanta Film Festival's 2022 TV pilot competition & Catalyst Content Festival's 2019 Live Pitch Competition, and a Semifinalist for Script Pipeline's 2021 TV pilot competition, Screencraft’s 2022 Diverse Voices Lab, & the 2017 & 2018 Sundance New Voices Labs. Her feature, Ladylike, has also received three 8's on The Black List and was in the Top 15% for the 2022 Nicholl Fellowship. The first season of her digital series, You're The Pest, made a highly successful run of the 2018-2019 international festival circuit, collecting awards and nominations for Best Ensemble, Best Writing, Best Comedy, and Best of The Fests along the way. Taylor's most recent projects include New Line Cinema’s Sweethearts, SHOWTIME’s City On A Hill, Post-Citrus, Adulting With Jane, Step Into My Office, The Maples, and Run Ins. She currently serves as a reader for Coverfly, and has adjudicated for several well respected festivals. On a related note, Taylor drinks a lot of coffee. On an unrelated note, Barack Obama follows her on Twitter (no, for real).

Director Statement

“When I visited the Players Club for a mixer in pre-Covid 2020, I first heard the story of the “Sarah Bernhardt Room”. “The Divine Sarah” was one of the world’s first international superstars, and in 1911, on a tour to the US, she was granted special permission by the members of the gentlemen-only Players Club in NYC for one night only to visit the club. Upon arrival, she boarded the elevator– and got stuck there for about an hour. When the fire brigade finally released her, she was so angry, she stormed from the club, never to return. The club has affection- ately called the elevator, “The Sarah Bernhardt Room” ever since.

The story was so funny to me, and a fascinating time capsule of the period. Things for women were changing so much then, and yet, not at all. From there, the idea of two besties going on an adventure to meet their hero at her Tay- lor-Swift-level of megastardom seemed only natural– but what could two such women, constrained by the expectations of their gender at that time, take away from spending an evening breaking out of them? What sort of innate power can we all find when we release ourselves from the rigid expectations of the gender binary?

Through the lens of an effervescent, joyful buddy comedy, Ladylike stimulates our cultural conversation about gender expression & performance, and the ways we can empower individuals through letting them be their authentic selves. With influences like the mission-driven buddy comedy Booksmart, the classic period piece A Room With A View, and the more modern take on a literary masterpiece The Personal History of David Copperfield, the film weaves a contemporary aes- thetic into the audio-visual fabric of the film to connect this early-20th century story more viscerally with a 21st century audience.”

Lauren Sowa (producer/actor)

LAUREN SOWA (she/her) is a New York-based actor and filmmaker who received her BFA in Drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As an actor, she has been featured on FBI (CBS), The Plot Against Amer- ica (HBO), The Rainbow Experiment (Paramount+), and The Devil’s Well (Amazon Prime). She is the co-founder of Form & Pressure Films, a production company dedicated to diversity and equality on set and on screen. Their first film, Marisol, won the 2019 HuffPost Impact Award and was licensed by HBO. Other films she’s produced can be seen on DUST, Tubi, Paramount+, PBS, Amazon Prime, and at film festi- vals all over the world. Select festival credits include: Slamdance, Nitehawk Shorts Festival, San Diego Latino Film Festival, and Cinequest. She is also the co-president of Pano, a non-profit dedicated to wom- en filmmakers.

Producer Statement

As soon as I was introduced to Taylor’s work, I knew that her voice was special. Ladylike is exactly the movie I want to see, and frankly, the world I want to inhabit at the moment. Who doesn’t want to have the adventure of a lifetime with their bestie, even if you have to break a rule or two? My ethos as a producer is to foster creative visions that fight for a better world, while cultivating inclusive talent in front of and behind the camera. Well-being and workplace health and safety are paramount to me. Storytelling is one of the greatest gifts we can share with humanity, and I believe that a happy team creates better work. I can’t wait to make this film, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

The Teaser Team