"The Stairs" by Jessica Aquila Cymerman

Period pieces: no small challenge for any writer.

Budget aside, locking in a timeless subject matter that can connect with a modern audience and getting it across eloquently in such a consolidated space of time is ... no small challenge, did we mention it's no small challenge?

Filmmaker Jessica Aquila Cymerman, however, finds a sweet spot with The Stairs. Challenge be damned.

"This film is about the power of women when they give themselves permission to use their voices. It's an immigrant story, integrating the old and new world beliefs that helped a community survive 1950-70s tenement living."

In this gorgeously shot, quietly riveting drama short, the lead, Rose, is caught between multiple worlds: her Italian heritage, her Irish heritage, and her American-ness.

As Aquila Cymerman underscores, "All the while, she's navigating growing up in a cramped and invasive environment, living on top of others in her community. Her mother is a supportive figure, but cannot stand up for herself or her daughter. Her father is loving, but absent because he constantly needs to work to make ends meet. So Rose is forced to find her own way of coping after she is preyed upon."

And the inevitable comes about. "A comatose sickness, because of a childlike way of not being able to understand ... mixing the real-life implications of assault with this childlike understanding of the supernatural."

So Rose must rely solely on an elder matriarch to save her—a bridge between worlds and generations.

Filmed on location in San Pedro, California. With a stellar performance from the young Briella Guiza as Rose and a cast that includes Levi Oleesky, Guy Nardulli, Natalia Abelleyra, Éanna O'Dowd, and veteran actress Jayne Taini as Mrs. Teruli, The Stairs provides a glimpse into the immigrant perspective of late 1960s Brooklyn, intimately tethered to the experiences of Aquila Cymerman's own family.

Odds & Ends

• The kids were good troopers on the shoot, especially with the chair stunt ... Which, incidentally, was completely safe—the chair was rigged by a stunt professional, and he was there with mats behind them the whole time. Levi (who played Angelo) was a little more nervous than Briella (Rosie), who who was playing with abandon at how far it went and stopped. But the second they started rolling, she was so good at faking the delicacy of how far she tilted the chair, it looked untethered and real.
• In one of the takes during the bible study scene, the Saint Christopher picture fell off the wall. It freaked out actor Guy Nardulli, since Saint Christopher is one of the saints known for protecting children, who exclaimed: "I'm out!" Given the subject matter, it was a much-needed moment of levity.
• In the sixties, when it was too hot outside to play, the kids would make up their own games within the building, so they would do this chair game (in addition to running from roof to roof of the tenement buildings because they were built so close together).
• Aquila Cymerman used her actual family pictures on the set. One of them features her great aunt swinging into the kitchen window. Again, close buildings—it was simply an easier way of dropping by!

About Jessica Aquila Cymerman

Jessica is a film and theatre director, producer, and writer from Los Angeles. She splits her time between California, Ireland, and Canada, and holds EU, American, and Canadian citizenship.

Film credits include the shorts One More Line, The Stairs, King Killer, The Mad Ones, and The Den.

The Den (2022): Winner “Best Director” Vesuvius Int’l Film Festival; Official selection: Seattle Film Festival, Austin FF, Sarasota FF, Tall Grass FF, Albuquerque FF, and many more. The Stairs finished its festival circuit in 2024: Winner of the  “Humanitarian Award,” “Best Child Actor,” and “Best Costume Design” at the Idyllwild Film Festival, “Best Female Director” Stockholm Short Fest; Jury Award Nominee for Best Narrative Short at the Rome International FF; Official selection Dances with Films, Poppy Jasper FF, Garden State FF, Irish Film Fest, SOHO International FF, Albuquerque FF, Mallorca Evolution FF, Queens World FF, and Manhattan FF.

In 2017, she co-founded the Theatre company Untold Wants in Dublin (now world-traveling), where she continues to direct and produce contemporary theatre.

Theatre directing credits include TH IR DS (world premiere, LEP), Hedda Gabler (Hollywood Fringe), Julie: After Strindberg (North American premiere), The Pillowman, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Cock, The Human Ear (North American premiere), Reasons to be Pretty (all for Untold Wants Theatre, co-artistic director); The Gift, Strange Relations (staged readings, IAMA Theatre, LA), Ted and the Right to Die (RCS, Glasgow); Il Cambiale di Matrimonio (Raucous Rossini, Glasgow); The Seagull: A Musical Adaptation (co-writer, Original Production, RCS); Urinetown The Musical; Reefer Madness! The Musical and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (Sarah Lawrence).

She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in Directing from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, with training from Shakespeare’s Globe, UK.