Balancing futile, laidback entanglements with nuanced, serious conversations about history and legacy is a powerful driving force in women’s relationships with each other. That versatile bond between the mother and daughter protagonists of the new dramedy, ‘Bird In Hand,’ offers a meaningful exploration into their sometimes frayed, but overall strong, relationship.

The project marks the feature film writing and directorial debuts of Melody C. Roscher. The movie, which stars Alisha Wainwright and Christine Lahti in the lead roles, reflects on the filmmaker’s own connection with her mother.

‘Bird In Hand’ follows Bird Rowe (Wainwright), a biracial bride-to-be who arrives unannounced at her charismatic hippie mother Carlotta’s (Lahti) rural home to plan her wedding. As the two scout wedding venues, their attempts at bonding quickly unravel as buried truths surface, revealing an emotionally complex and fraught relationship.

As a result, Bird enlists the help of the new neighbors, Dennis (James Le Gros) and Leigh (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), who recently bought a nearby plantation. As Bird and Dennis hit it off, their time together leads to lustful decisions that upend the lives of all involved.

‘Bird In Hand’ had its World Premiere in the US Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Festival on Friday, June 6 at Village East Cinema. To help promote the movie, Roscher generously took the time to talk about penning and helming the project during an exclusive interview over Zoom the morning of the premiere.

Film Factual (FF): You wrote the script for the new dramedy, ‘Bird in Hand.’ What was your inspiration in penning the screenplay for the film?

Melody C. Roscher (MCR): The idea came from wanting to explore something that felt very difficult for me personally. I also wanted to explore a story that helped me work through some of my own history and upbringing.

When I started writing, I was kind of obsessing over the fact that I just really had no relationship with my biological father. So I wanted to write about how that had shaped me.

The more I did that, the more I realized there was a counterweight to that absent father, which was my very present mother. I was just as inspired to write about the person who was there as the person who wasn’t.

So as I kept shaping these characters, I was in writing exercise mode. I was working out whether or not there was a story to be told that was worthwhile, or if I was just kind of writing to write.

The more I open it up, the more I thought about identity, cycles of behavior and missing people. The presence of their absence sometimes affects us just as much as someone who is physically there. I just felt that the story could be the kind of story that would touch a lot of people, no matter what their upbringings were. So I stuck to it and just kept writing.

FF: After scribing the script, you made your feature film directorial debut on the project. How did you approach helming the movie as your first feature?

MCR: It’s funny, because now I’m craving having the experience of directing something I hadn’t written, just to see how it feels differently. Since I did the thing where I wrote what I know, and then I directed what I wrote, I’m interested in having the opposite experience.

When I was making this film, I was like, am I on track? Am I making a decision that helps tell the story?

I had a lot to draw from because I knew where the idea behind all the scenes had come from. I knew what had happened in my own life that helped generated those ideas in the first place. So I loved that process of going from writing the script to directing, and how the two worked off each other.

I think now going back to writing, with directing in mind, makes me feel so much more empowered to write scenes that are even more fun to direct. It makes me excited to write something specifically with that idea in mind. Then I can direct it, including workshopping it with actors and staging it with a camera. It kind of makes the writing process new again for me, and that’s exciting.

FF: Speaking about the actors, ‘Bird in Hand’ stars Alisha Wainwright and Christine Lahti. How did you approach casting the dramedy in order to find the right actors to work together and bring the mother-daughter relationship to the screen?

MCR: We really cast a wide net to just try and find someone who loved and understood the material. With Alisha, our connection was just amazing. She auditioned for the film, and when I saw her tape, I had a very visceral reaction to watching her perform.

I felt that she was absolutely fearless. I knew I wanted someone who was unafraid to just try things, and to be messy and not watch themselves. I really felt that she was not a very self-conscious performer in only the most positive way.

She was willing to just throw it out there and see what happens. I was very drawn to that. After speaking with her and meeting her, I knew she was the right person. It was unshakable in my mind.

I just loved working with her so much, and it’s the same with Christine – I loved working with Christine, too. She has years of amazing material that I was able to watch. To get to understand her and what she could potentially bring to the table was amazing.

She just she got it. She’s a mother herself, and she understands the complexities of the relationships between mothers and their kids, and how beautiful, wonderful and complicated they can be overall. (Roscher laughs.)

FF: Once Alisha and Christine signed on to star in the film, how did you work with them to build their characters’ relationship? Did you have time to rehearse beforehand?

MCR: Most of our rehearsals and prep was done over Zoom. They’re both in California, and I was already in Virginia, where we shot, and where I now live.

We had a lot of time to get to know each other as people, which was nice. We were able to be comfortable with each other and talk very openly about our hopes for the project.

We were also able to dive into the characters, and understand everything that could possibly feel helpful to them. Sometimes it was more helpful for Alisha or Christine to fill in some backstory on their own. They were like, “I want to own that piece of their backstory, and I want to create that.”

I was like, “As long as we’re cool on the intention of why this moment is like this, and why they’re approaching the scene this way, it’s great.” I will invent everything, and they can use that, or we can throw half of it away. Whatever gives the actors the best connection to the performance, I was happy to change things to help them.

So working with both of them involved mining the strategy that would give them the most closeness and connection with their own character. That way, on the day, they could feel free and confident.

FF: Like you mentioned earlier, you shot ‘Bird in Hand’ in Virginia, where you now live. Why did you decide to film there? How did you secure the places where you shot, and create the look for those locations?

MCR: It was a great experience to film here. I’m lucky that I live here in Virginia now, as I left New York in 2020. So I’ve been location scouting for this movie for years! I have seen an absurd amount of the state of Virginia.

For me, picking the locations is as integral as casting; I take it very seriously. I did scout other states as well – we looked at Kentucky and Georgia. But for a number of reasons, Virginia made the most sense.

Filming here was amazing. The crew is very good in Richmond. They had just filmed a project that at the time was known as ‘Atlantis.’ It’s the Pharrell and Michel Gondry movie. So everyone was just fresh off of that production and feeling very motivated and excited.

We filmed our movie a year ago. So COVID restrictions had just kind of gone away, and everyone was happy to be on set again. (Roscher laughs.)

So, it was great filming here. The weather cooperated, even though we were in hurricane season. So I would highly encourage anyone who can to film in Virginia, because it kind of flies under the radar, and there’s a lot of unexplored stuff still to film here.

FF: David Formentin served as the editor on the movie. How did you work together build the story?

MCR: Oh my goodness – the editing process was so fast. I think maybe it always feels fast for every filmmaker. (Roscher laughs.) I feel like you want to explore every nook and cranny of your footage, but you can’t afford to edit for two years for so many reasons.

But it was great. I actually feel like the editing process is very much like the writing process. It reflects all of your decisions back at you. You’re confronted with the thought that oh, I made that decision, and this is what I have now because of that decision. That’s multiplied by the thousands of decisions you make every day.

But the editing process was really beautiful in that way, because it was a way of distancing myself from production and re-evaluating what we’d done. But for me, editing is challenging because being away from all the crew was hard. I love having crew around, so post-production is difficult. There are many fewer people around.

David, the editor, is a thoughtful, fast, supportive, funny person to be around. So that made the editing process enjoyable because I had someone I could hang out with and try things with on the edit. He really loved and believed in the film, so his daily support meant so much.

FF: ‘Bird In Hand’ (had) its World Premiere in the US Narrative Competition of the Tribeca Festival. What does it mean to you to return to New York to screen the dramedy at the festival?

MCR: I love New York. I feel like New York raised me in so many ways. I moved (to New York) at 17, but I don’t live (there) anymore, so it (was) a homecoming for me to premiere at Tribeca. I feel like I (was) able to mesh the two worlds that I’m from. (Roscher laughs.)

I love and respect so many New York filmmakers. I also love the voices that have debuted at Tribeca, and I’m proud to be one of them now!