The Story
While reading a poem at an open-mic night, Franzie spots a ghost of her past in the back of the audience: her ex-lover, Tony. As she reads her poem, flashes of memories with Tony are revealed; memories of drugs, passion, heartbreak. The poem is about him.
Franzie goes outside to get some air after the performance and finds Tony there. There is still love and longing between them, but also anger and disappointment--Franzie has gotten clean and Tony hasn’t. Mid-conversation, another performer bursts outside to tell Franzie that Eileen Myles, a well-known NYC poet, is in the audience asking about her. Franzie says goodbye to Tony and to her past and goes back inside to an unknown, but hopeful, future.
Director's Statement
Franzie is over 10 years in the making, the film I needed years ago as an active heroin addict. It’s the story of a strong, complex woman grappling with addiction, but also with creativity, with different shades of love, with grief. It didn’t exist then and inexplicably, it still doesn’t, even amidst an unprecedented opioid epidemic nationwide. In the past few years, there have been several films about young men struggling with addiction (Ben is Back, Beautiful Boy), but the sole recent film depicting a female heroin addict (Heaven Knows What) focuses only on her addiction rather than any kind of recovery.
But listen: I’m not making Franzie as a PSA. I’m making it because it's a story I've wanted to tell for years, a story I needed and never saw. A story that feels worth telling. To paraphrase icon Toni Morrison: if the film I needed then still doesn’t exist all these years later, it's on me to make it.