24 Frames Lalla is a coming of age horror film about Lalla Grotowski, filmmaker who doesn't trust themselves and is being haunted by a six headed snake in a reoccurring nightmare. There's only one way out of this crisis...to make a film on their own.

Director Statement

When the pandemic hit, I had an existential crisis. Film is a collaborative art, if I couldn’t make my films with other people, how would I express myself? I wondered if I could make a film on my own? This was the initial acorn idea of Lalla’s story.

The film evolved into an artistic process film. The primary question I kept digging for was, how does creativity work? There’s an unspoken dialogue between the subconscious and conscious and, for me, there is definitely a voice outside of myself, a muse, that communicates to me. And listening to this muse is my singular job. If I can honestly listen and get my ego out of the way then the stories and answers arrive.

My hope for this film is that 13-25 year olds who are afraid of devoting themselves to the artistic road will watch it and take up the gauntlet of painters, writers, sculptors, poets, filmmakers, dancers, etc. The artistic road is hard, unnoticed, but it seems to be a true way to become oneself and hopefully all selves.

Director Biography - Joy Marzec

Joy Marzec is a female identifying Mexican American self taught filmmaker who has always liked fairy tales, myths, ghost, and surrealistic stories. She has written, directed, and produced features and short films. Her second feature film, I AM THAT, won best New Mexico feature film at the Santa Fe International Film Festival and is available on Amazon Prime, Tubi, and DirectTV.

In her teens and early 20's, Joy intensely studied and worked professionally in the theater adapting and directing books for the stage, like Siddhartha and A Brave New World. She received a degree in Economics at the University of Washington in Seattle.

After graduating from college, her brother, Mitch Marzec, encouraged her to move to Philadelphia so she could sing vox and play keyboard for his band, An American Chinese. AAC released two albums, an LP titled, Utopian Tree, and an EP titled, Panic Pilgrim.

Once she moved to Philly she begin experimenting with writing screenplays. In 2007 she shot her first short film. To her surprise, she found that she loved every stage of the filmmaking process: financing, writing, producing, directing, and editing. She has raised the financing for all of her films by co-owing a production company that specializes in Ashtanga yoga. She has produced countless video courses, world tours, and five books.

Joy consistently works on multiple projects (in various stages of production) at a time. She is deeply invested in her collaborators and prefers to work with the same designers and actors for a number of years in order to build a strong collaborative short hand language. Her brother, Mitch, has composed all of the music for her films.