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aratoga-born filmmaker Angela Sheil’s debut short film, The DoubleWalker, is a visually-arresting psychological thriller that serves as a profound testament to the power of artistic vulnerability. The film tells the story of a grief-stricken young woman named Grace, who returns to her childhood home only to discover that she may have inherited a sinister family curse. Sheil found the inspiration for the film during a stressful semester at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. “One evening, I dreamt of a world in which everyone had a clone,” she says. “Each clone was hunting for their ‘original’ and intending to kill them and take their place. I woke up sweating, grabbed a pen and scrap paper off my nightstand, and the dream exploded onto the back of a utility bill. I knew instantly that the dream was a ‘death-of-self’ message. I needed to shed the person I was and start taking care of the woman I wanted to become. Part of that transformation involved manifesting that message onto film.” Just two days after the dream, Sheil
completed the first draft of the script. In the years that followed, she continued to refine the script, and returned to the Capital Region from the west coast. After arriving in Troy in 2016, Sheil connected with the Collar City–based film production company Chromoscope Pictures. She has since collaborated with them on a number of music videos, for which she has served as an actor, producer, gaffer and director. During COVID-19, Sheil emptied out her savings to bring the script of The DoubleWalker to life, assembling a talented cast and crew from New York City, Los Angeles, Portland, ME, and the Capital Region. The DoubleWalker was shot in September 2021 in Sedgwick, ME, on protected land surrounding the only warm-water cove on the state’s coast. After filming for The DoubleWalker was complete, Sheil started a fundraising campaign to ensure that all financial requirements for post-production were met. As the filmmaker looks forward to premiering The DoubleWalker in May, she’s excited to share her creative vision with the world. “The further I go down my path as a filmmaker, the more I realize what’s most WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND important to me is vulnerability,” she says. DIRECTED BY “Transforming the joy and pain of what ANGELA SHEIL it is to be human and what it means to be vulnerable—that’s the kind of filmmaking RELEASE DATE: MAY 2022 I am interested in.”
KIKI VASSILAKIS
The DoubleWalker
sheil be back (inset) Saratoga native Angela Sheil returned to the Capital Region from the west coast in 2016; (top) Sheil’s short film was shot in Sedgwick, ME, in September 2021.
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