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Date: March 30, 1998
Dale Fellowship Winner to Film Story of Homeless Family
Princeton, N.J. &emdash; When Mora Stephens ’98 spent last summer turning her short story of a homeless girl and her family into a script, she dreamt of making it into a film. How that would happen remained a question.
In July, Stephens will begin rehearsals for her film, Betty Dove, thanks to a $20,000 Martin A. Dale ’53 Fellowship, which lets one Princeton senior spend the year after graduation pursuing a dream. The Dale program, now in its second year, gives the winner time and money to complete a creative, independent project that will broaden his or her view of the world and possibly launch a career. The fellowship embodies the spirit of its donor, Martin A. Dale, Princeton Class of 1953, who believes in the transformative potential of a yearlong project of focused effort and self-discovery before a new graduate embarks on the next phase of life.
When Stephens learned of the Dale Fellowship, "I almost couldn’t believe it," she said. "I am so excited for this opportunity to make my film. I thought it would take me years of struggling in the film industry before I could direct my first feature."
Her script for Betty Dove began as a short story in a creative writing class at Princeton. The title character is a 12-year-old girl who, with her mother, is evicted from a welfare hotel in New York City. The young girl leads them back to Jones Beach, where they encounter many eccentric characters, including Betty’s drug-addicted father. In making her film, Stephens hopes to highlight the problems of hunger, poverty and homelessness that exist in her native Manhattan.
Dale Fellowship winners cannot use the funds in an organized course of study. They must present the selection panel with a schedule for their project and a budget outlining how they will spend the grant. Candidates are considered based on the potential impact of the project on their personal futures and on society, and judges assess whether the applicants’ proposals can be completed in a year. Stephens’ plan to rehearse, shoot, edit and produce Betty Dove fits that criteria &emdash; her application even called for filming on weekends to save money on equipment rentals.
"I’ve known since I was young that I wanted to direct," said Stephens. A native New Yorker, she grew up with plenty of exposure to the arts - her father is a playwright, her mother, a singer. And, she saw lots of movies. She admires the directors Jane Campion and Martin Scorcese, but when asked to name a favorite, she hesitates. "There are so many!"
Her first directing assignments were high school theater productions at Hunter, the selective public school in New York City. She has tried acting, producing, and writing, reasoning that a good director must grasp of all of those elements. But rather than attend a film school, Stephens sought a broader education. "Princeton gave me the best opportunity to do that," she said.
A Woodrow Wilson School major, Stephens envisions a film-making career of artist as educator, in which public policy issues will be presented through personal stories. Her Wilson School thesis, "The Politics of Famine in North Korea," illustrates her approach. "The more I learn about this ‘silent famine,’ the more I want to be able to tell the individual stories to a larger public," she wrote on her Dale Fellowship application. "Gathering these limited personal accounts of the famine, piecing together the information, and synthesizing the material into my own thesis has been the most significant intellectual experience of my time at Princeton."
Stephens impressed the judges with her practical experience in making a short film and by reviving the Princeton Film Foundation, which had folded after one production. To complete her certificate in Visual Arts, Stephens directed and produced Cornermen, which was based on her father’s short story of a young girl’s encounter with an alcoholic father who had abandoned her. (Cornermen is scheduled to air at the James M. Stewart ’32 Theater in May.)
Like many young directors, Stephens stretches her budget by casting friends and even her parents in productions. In Cornermen, she directed a young girl who lives in Princeton who had no acting experience. "She became an incredible actress in a short time," said Stephens, who worked to bring out the similarities between the child and the young woman who portrayed the character as an adult.
Stephens’ coursework at Princeton includes a mix from the worlds of public policy and the arts, including creative writing, advanced playwriting, and a Princeton Atelier in Documentary Film, under the guidance of Toni Morrison and Louis Massiah. At Princeton, she organized a Korean Film Series. In the summer of 1996, Stephens took an intensive summer course at the New York Film Academy. She is also a published poet.