Roxane and Serena are on their way to their New Year’s Eve office party when the sound of gunshots forces them take shelter in a nearby office space that is actually...a suicide hotline center. Luckily, Roxane has experience as a phone operator--a sex phone operator. She "handles" the call while they search for instructions, but all they can find are a bunch of squirt guns in a box of party supplies left by the previous renters. Finally, Roxane finds a revolver in a drawer and suggests they shoot their way out, but Serena admits they don't have enough firepower and reveals she's had a pistol in her purse all along. Just when they're about to give into despair, the clock strikes midnight. The new year brings hope! And then the phone rings. Serena grabs her tiny gun and declares they should "leave". Roxane agrees but thinks she means they’re going to shoot themselves! Serena stops her just in time. They listen to New Year’s celebrations in the distance and tell themselves there must be a better option but as they hear screams and gunshots off in the distance, they're not so sure.
HOTLINE is a contained, microbudget woman driven short about the struggle between taking care of yourself and taking care of others that will speak to a modern indie audience and leave them feeling bemused but haunted about the world we live in. It tells a darkly comedic but not hopeless story while creating space for women to learn the craft of filmmaking. The project is committed to women leading, collaborating and creating work that is both artistically bold and socially aware.
MERRIT CHELSEY SCHMIDT
Writer / Director / Producer
Merrit Chelsey Schmidt (she/her) lives in Boulder, Colorado. Two of her drama features placed in the semifinals in the Austin Film Festival in 2024 including the opera biopic BARITONE and a contained magical drama feature titled AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A VERY NORMAL PERSON. Chelsey's dark comedy feature, SUICIDE AT NOON won Grand Prize in the 2023 Hollywood Table read my Screenplay competition and her short of the same title won the Austin Table read Competition in 2021 and was a finalist in the PAGE awards 2022. Her feminist horror feature script CONNER was a semifinalist in the Austin Film Festival 2019 and Top Ten Tableread my Screenplay Summer competition 2022. Chelsey has an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop and her books of poetry include Baby, I Don’t Care, Poemland, Bad Bad, Zirconia and the latest due in spring of 2026 is titled Opera Fever. A New York Times review for her book, Baby I Don't Care, called Chelsey “A provocative thinker about gender and poetry and the erotics of dislike.”
Hotline
Roxane and Serena are on their way to their New Year’s Eve office party when the sound of gunshots forces them take shelter in a nearby office space that is actually...a suicide hotline center. Luckily, Roxane has experience as a phone operator--a sex phone operator. She "handles" the call while they search for instructions, but all they can find are a bunch of squirt guns in a box of party supplies left by the previous renters. Finally, Roxane finds a revolver in a drawer and suggests they shoot their way out, but Serena admits they don't have enough firepower and reveals she's had a pistol in her purse all along. Just when they're about to give into despair, the clock strikes midnight. The new year brings hope! And then the phone rings. Serena grabs her tiny gun and declares they should "leave". Roxane agrees but thinks she means they’re going to shoot themselves! Serena stops her just in time. They listen to New Year’s celebrations in the distance and tell themselves there must be a better option but as they hear screams and gunshots off in the distance, they're not so sure.
HOTLINE is a contained, microbudget woman driven short about the struggle between taking care of yourself and taking care of others that will speak to a modern indie audience and leave them feeling bemused but haunted about the world we live in. It tells a darkly comedic but not hopeless story while creating space for women to learn the craft of filmmaking. The project is committed to women leading, collaborating and creating work that is both artistically bold and socially aware.
MERRIT CHELSEY SCHMIDT
Writer / Director / Producer
Merrit Chelsey Schmidt (she/her) lives in Boulder, Colorado. Two of her drama features placed in the semifinals in the Austin Film Festival in 2024 including the opera biopic BARITONE and a contained magical drama feature titled AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A VERY NORMAL PERSON. Chelsey's dark comedy feature, SUICIDE AT NOON won Grand Prize in the 2023 Hollywood Table read my Screenplay competition and her short of the same title won the Austin Table read Competition in 2021 and was a finalist in the PAGE awards 2022. Her feminist horror feature script CONNER was a semifinalist in the Austin Film Festival 2019 and Top Ten Tableread my Screenplay Summer competition 2022. Chelsey has an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop and her books of poetry include Baby, I Don’t Care, Poemland, Bad Bad, Zirconia and the latest due in spring of 2026 is titled Opera Fever. A New York Times review for her book, Baby I Don't Care, called Chelsey “A provocative thinker about gender and poetry and the erotics of dislike.”