Sierra Falconer and Cast Bring It Home in Sunfish (& Other Stories of Green Lake)

Film

Home is many things, from the place we live to the people and memories that shape our lives, and in many ways, it stays with us wherever we go. Writer-director Sierra Falconer is bringing her home, Green Lake Township, Michigan, to Park City. Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) will premiere on January 26 as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival 2025. The film features a talented ensemble that includes Karsen Liotta, Emily Hall and Tenley Kellogg

“We shot in these cottages that belong to my grandma,” Falconer says. The feature film, an anthology of interconnected stories set around a small Michigan lake, draws heavily from Falconer’s personal history. “Every time I go there, it feels like exactly the same,” Falconer says. “It never changes. It still has all the same furniture.” While Falconer knew that she wanted her first feature to be about this place that is so close to her heart, she initially struggled to find a story structure that captured what she wanted to bring to the screen. It was then that she decided on an anthology format to reflect the richness of her memories. “I was really struggling to find one story that captured what was most important to me, which is this place and what it feels like to be here,” she says. “Ultimately, I stumbled upon this anthology format, which allowed an exploration of a lot of different perspectives and voices while centering on this place.” The film is made up of four segments: Sunfish, Summer Camp, Two Hearted and Resident Bird, each following a different protagonist.

“Ultimately, I stumbled upon this anthology format, which allowed an exploration of a lot of different perspectives and voices while centering on this place.”

In Two Hearted, Liotta plays Annie, a young woman who works at a diner, where she meets a man named Finn (Dominic Bogart) whom she sets out to help in catching an elusive fish which he hopes will be his legacy. While Annie is at home on the lake, Liotta, the daughter of Hollywood icon Ray Liotta, grew up in Los Angeles, and had little real-world experience with boats. “I’ve been on a boat before, on a lake, maybe once,” Liotta says. “Even just when I [was] naming the fish to Finn, I had to look up all those fish because I don’t have any prior knowledge [of] fishing or anything that I was doing. Sierra kind of taught me everything, like, that day.” Despite the different backgrounds, Liotta was able to connect with Annie’s loneliness and feeling she had more to offer than was being recognized. “I think everyone can relate to that in some way,” Liotta says.

Sierra Falconer, director of Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake), an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Trina Pham

In Resident Bird, Kellogg and Hall portray Robin and Blue Jay, respectively, teenaged sisters whose family runs a lakeside bed-and-breakfast, a storyline that required them to build a convincing rapport. “I think about three months before [filming] we started meeting up once a week,” Hall says.  “We’d make inside jokes, or, I think we made up a handshake at one point just to get to really know each other and become sisters,” Hall says. For Kellogg, the most challenging scene came early in production: an emotional goodbye as Robin leaves the nest to go off to college. “The goodbye scene was the first scene that we had filmed that day,” Kellogg says. “So as soon as we got on set — I think even before I was in makeup, in costume — I went out and I laid in the hammock, and I just put in both my headphones, and I listened to some of the saddest music I’ve ever listened to … I thought about friends that I missed and that I wanted to see again, but I knew, like, ‘Oh, wait, I can’t see them again because we don’t live near each other.’ And it just kind of brought up emotion.”

“I’ve been really surprised and excited to see how people who have never even been there are sort of relating to this place.”

Falconer was meticulous about balancing the tone across the film’s multiple storylines, a challenge she approached with both intention and experimentation. “While I was writing it, I really wanted it to sort of mimic the feeling of watching a full feature. I didn’t want it to feel like we were watching four shorts back-to-back,” she says. “Each film has a very different pace, and some of them even have, like, a little bit of a different genre, to keep the pacing, the shape of a three-act structure movie.” Achieving this cohesion was not without its challenges. Falconer admits, “Getting the tone right for each one was a big challenge. I was really worried all the way up until we saw the first cut in the edit [about] if that was gonna work or not. Luckily, I think that it did, and it all feels like it’s within the same world.” The result is a film that feels deeply personal while resonating with a broad audience. “I’ve been really surprised and excited to see how people who have never even been there are sort of relating to this place,” Falconer notes. “It reminds them of their childhood in whatever small ways.”

With Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake), Falconer delivers an evocative portrait of a cherished place, capturing its timeless quality through the lives of its characters. As Sundance audiences prepare to experience the film, Falconer and her cast are ready to share the magic of Green Lake with the world.

Read more of SLUG’s coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.