Pre-Production

Thirteen-year-old Zola struggles to cope with the sudden death of her mother and finds peace in her love for art and painting, but her overbearing father has other ideas for her life.

When do a father’s dreams for his daughter's future cross the line and become too much for her to bear? ​Can she take​ ​control of her​ own life and keep their fragile​ ​relationship intact at the same time? 

Storyline
Based on the short story,​ ​IT’S NOT FOR ME, by Daniel Ali, HER LIFE is a​ ​coming-of-age story that challenges us to​ ​believe in the resilience of the human spirit​ ​and a young girl’s determination to make her​ ​own way in life. After the tragic death of her​ ​mother, Zola, played by Isabella Ali, (Love and​ ​the Game) 2021, (Delilah) 2023, becomes emersed in a world she paints for herself. A world she controls with the stroke of her brush​ ​on the canvas. One where she’s protected from the cruel reality of life and the pain of her​ ​loss. 

With high school only a year away, her father, a well-known and respected soccer​ ​coach plans for Zola to use her considerable skills on the field to gain acceptance into the​ ​prestigious Woodward Academy Day School for girls. But Zola has plans of her own. ​Soon, ​they begin to clash over what direction her life should take, and the underlying pain they​ ​both feel over the loss of a beloved mother and wife forces a reckoning. But will they find​ ​their way to one another and a healthy resolution, or will the ties that bind break the bond​ ​between a young girl yearning for self-expression and the father who can't let go? 

*Currently in pre-production, HER LIFE  stars Isabella Ali, Love and the Game (2021), Delilah (2022), daughter of writer/director, Daniel Ali and is expected in 2024.

A psychiatrist’s marital troubles push him to the brink of a nervous breakdown, causing him to question his mental and emotional well-being and his ability to function as a professional.

Storyline

After discovering that his wife of twenty years has been having an affair for more than a year and now wants a divorce, a psychiatrist begins to doubt himself and his ability to care for his patients. Slowly, his inner fears take hold of him as a life’s worth of secrets and hidden emotions eat away at his fragile reality. With every session, he his pulled deeper into his patients experiences until he has trouble distinguishing their realities from his own. With his sense of self-worth all but gone, he turns to alcohol and prescription medications as he struggles to express his true thoughts and feelings for the people around him. Through the process he becomes aware of his own great truth; his life has all been a fraud. He’d been pretending to be something and someone he wasn’t and never could be. And now, on the far side of forty looking back, his life is a wasteland of lies and broken relationships. But how can you know the answers if you don’t know the questions? 

Psychiatrist is written and directed by Daniel Ali, Love and the Game (2021), Delilah (2022). The lead character will be played by Jonathan H. Ragins, who reprises the  role of Nicholas from his standout performance in Delilah which this storyline is loosly based upon. The film is currently in pre-production and is expected in 2024.