Oh Me, Oh My, ‘Oh, Hi!’: Filmmaker Sophie Brooks on Her Journey to Sundance

variety.com:

Sophie Brooks I made my first feature over nine years ago, when I was in my mid 20s. We premiered “The Boy Downstairs” at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017, and it was all gloriously magical. “This is how movies happen,” I thought.

You write a script (it was my first feature screenplay), your first choice actress says yes (that was Zosia Mamet), and you make the movie in the same year.

It’s pretty straightforward! I thought. How sweet was she? My younger self. I sort of envy the hopeful naiveté I had at that time, with so little experience in the industry and relatively fresh out of film school, I was bushy-tailed and starry-eyed; sure I’d make my second feature the following year.

Well, nine years later, I’m finally premiering my second feature at Sundance. To be honest, it feels a bit surreal. I wrote the screenplay for “Oh, Hi!” over four and half years ago, in the thick of Covid.