MARGOT
Queerability Podcast
Episode 8: A FILMMAKER RISING
Margot Bruce is a film director and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned a Bachelor of Arts at the College of Wooster, with a major in English and minor in Film Studies. She was a member of the NCAA DIII swim team and received the Dean’s Scholarship Award.
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While at San Francisco State University’s School of Cinema, she was a recipient of the Provost’s Scholar Award in 2019 and 2020. She graduates with an MFA in 2021.
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Her 2019 short film, Come Home to Me, inspired by the death of her brother Cameron in 2010, was an official selection for the New Dreams Film Festival and received the Award of Excellence at the Canada Shorts Film Festival.
Margot’s work draws on her identity as a lesbian woman, her staunch feminism, her love of fairy tales, her experiences of loss, and her fascination with water and the ocean.
Logline
Katherine left the sea and chose a life on land with Billie long ago. However, the queer couple’s relationship is tested when Katherine’s former lover, a selkie, comes to visit.
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About the Film
Katherine has chosen a life on land with Billie. When Isolde, a selkie (a Celtic mermaid-like creature), has emerged from the sea to spend a weekend with the couple, she brings reminders of the world Katherine left behind. Katherine and Billie’s trust and commitment to each other is threatened as Katherine is pulled between the two women. Can she really belong in more than one world? Harbor is a queer, modern Celtic/ Norse fairytale and “ghost” story about living life in the in-between.
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What is a Selkie?
Selkies are mermaid-like creatures from the folklore of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Ireland, and the Scottish Highlands. They live in the water as seals, then shed their skins and live as humans on land. Selkie stories are usually sad, centering around a romance between a human and a selkie that ends with the selkie having to return to the sea, but they are never sentimental or cloying. That constant sorrow, without melodrama, is a key element of Harbor.
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Facts about Harbor Team
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80% of the crew identifies as female.
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Over 25% of the cast and crew identifies as queer.
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All female cast.
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We hired the only Bay Area intimacy coordinator.
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Websites:
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https://margotbruce.wixsite.com/site (Margot’s website)
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https://harborfilmsf.wixsite.com/my-site (Harbor’s website)
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Social Media: