UNC Alum Comes Home for Beautiful Q&A

When Meredith Edwards graduated from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington in 2007, there was not yet an Indiegogo or Kickstarter. The crowd-funding platforms would follow, respectively, one and two years later and it is thanks to the former that Edwards was able to make her directorial debut.

Edwards, a native of Jacksonville, NC who is now based in New York, is back in Wilmington for tonight's Cape Fear Independent Film Festival screening of Imagine I'm Beautiful. The psychological drama, set in Harlem, explores the increasingly complicated relationship between two female roommates.



The screenplay for Beautiful was written by co-star Naomi McDougall Jones. As Jones recently told the Aspen Times, it was inspired by some real-life experience:

Jones was interested in people who can pass off untruths as reality. A few years ago, Jones was close to two instances of people who had fabricated significant parts of their existence. "Which is a very interesting psychological disorder," she said.

"There are people who are charismatic, good friends, but they can believe in multiple, contradictory stories. They believe in the lies they're telling. I got interested in a person who seems normal, and you get sucked into their version of reality because it's so enticing."

Tonight's screening follows a triumphant Beautiful stop last weekend at the Arizona International Film Festival. Jones won a Special Jury Prize for Best Performance, while the film was awarded Best Dramatic Feature.

Jones, together with her production company partner (and film co-producer) Caitlin Gold, wrote the screenplay for the film after making some waves with the the Web series Corrupting the Classics with Contemporary Crap. The New York premiere is set for May 30 and on June 7, Imagine I'm Beautiful will show in Jones' hometown of Aspen at the Wheeler Opera House.

[Imagine I'm Beautiful]