Make no mistake about it, New Filmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) will be screening Honey Lauren’s film Mistake in honor of Pride Month.
Lauren wrote, directed, and co-stars in the drama, winner of Best Inspirational Feature at the recent Sedona International Film Festival in Arizona. Dominic Bogart, Jiji Hise and veteran character actors Brett Cullen and Kay Lenz star alongside Lauren in Mistake, which screens this Saturday as part of NFMLA’s annual InFocus: LGBTQ+ Cinema program, “a festival lineup dedicated to elevating LGBTQ+ storytelling.”
“Set in the American South across 1941 and 1971, Mistake tells the story of Larry Benson, a person born intersex whose life is shaped by a decision made at birth and reinforced through years of hormone treatment, family control, isolation, and violence,” notes a synopsis. “The film follows Larry’s painful journey toward self-recognition while exploring identity, alienation, love, and the cost of forcing human lives into rigid social expectations.”
Honey Lauren in ‘Mistake’
Panik Piktures
“Mistake is a bit of my own story too,” Lauren said in a statement. “And while the world has come a long way since 1971, some things are sadly the same. The gender issues are current. They are relevant. If we can examine, learn, and heal from intolerant attitudes of our past, we can move towards a more equitable society where not only intersex people but people of all gender varieties can live free and happy. And really anyone who is forced or chooses to live outside strict social norms.”
Dominic Bogart in ‘Mistake’
Panik Piktures
Mistake served as the opening night film at the prestigious Tulipani di Seta Nera International Social Cinematography Festival in Rome, where it received the Sorriso per la Cultura Internazionale Award. Additional honors include the Festival Grand Prize and a Special Jury Award for Outstanding Cinematography at the Arizona International Film Festival, Best Feature at the 27th Reel Equals Film Festival, and the Best Drama Feature Award at the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival where it was also named to the festival’s Judges’ Top 10.
Mistake, shot across locations in Los Angeles, Kentucky, and Tennessee, is produced by Brad Wyman (Monster), Davey Robertson, Erik Bakken, and David Shultz. Glen Reynolds of Circus Road Films has come on board as sales representative for the film.
NFMLA’s annual InFocus: LGBTQ+ Cinema program, is presented during Pride Month with Outfest among its community partners.
Kay Lenz and Dominic Bogart in ‘Mistake’
Panik Piktures
Lauren cites Terrence Mallick, Jaco Van Dormeal, Andrei Tarkovsky, Abel Ferrara, and Gasper Noé as cinematic influences. In an interview included in press notes for the film, the filmmaker explained the origins of the project.
“In the case of Mistake, I set out to write about a particularly powerful time in my young life,” Lauren said. “From the time I was born till about the age of eight, I never understood why my parents named me ‘Honey’. It was a girls’ name. And I knew I wasn’t a girl. I would complain to my parents, yet they were remarkably undisturbed about their error. And so, by the time I was seven, I had cut off my hair, I only wore boy’s clothes (SEARS, slim cut jeans, my brother wore Huskies), and I changed my name to Lawrence. I call that, ‘the year I was a boy.’ My parents were cool about it. If they had any anxiety or concern, they never showed it. They must have spoken to the school I attended, because the school was cool also. They all let me live as Lawrence.”
The filmmaker continued, “Living as a boy was not easy. If I felt a sense of freedom, I don’t exactly remember. I ‘passed’ as Lawrence most of the time. The rest of the time, the world let me know I was anything but free to live as a boy. Summer at the YMCA was brutal. Boy fights are brutal. At the end of that summer, after yet another boy-fight, I told my parents I was done. They were cool calling me Lawrence, but the rest of the world was not. I was eight and I was tired. I let my hair grow out and the very day I had my ears pierced my parents took me to El Coyote restaurant, long before it became a well-known queer establishment in Hollywood. I remember that day, the waiter saying to me, ‘and what would the young man like?’ I was still a boy even when I was trying to be a girl.
“As I look back, all these years later, Lawrence is still a part of me. I set out to write about it, and that is how Mistake came into being.”
