VIDEO INTERVIEW: FAMILY MOVIE TIME PODCAST, June 20, 2024 Host: Jeff M. Giordano

 

ARTICLE: CINEMA FEMME Wrap-Up of the 2023 New Orleans Film Festival, November 29, 2023

I so loved Summer Shelton’s “You & I.” Her feature directorial debut was a gem with so many different facets and edges, and complexities of beauty. It’s a sexy film, with intense emotions. Great supporting role by Ashley Shelton. I got to see the Q&A with Summer after the film screened. She shared that she came up with this film during the pandemic, and that this film wasn’t a true story, but was inspired by aspects to her past relationships. You can tell that she let her heart bleed through this project, and it shows through the performances, and the delicate edits of this painful love story.

VIDEO INTERVIEW: IONCINEMA, November 23, 2023 Host: Eric Lavallée

Not unlike how a young Athina Rachel Tsangari ended up being part of a Richard Linklater film, Summer Shelton has been part of the fabric of the American indie scene dating back to a bit appearance in a David Gordon Green’s All the Real Girls. After cutting her teeth as a producer (with a pair of prominent titles in the cinema of Ramin Bahrani), Shelton would put all of one’s chips on the table with her feature debut You & I. A second chance at romance or a proper visit with the past, Shelton is joined by Clayne Crawford for a drama romance that re-examines a dynamic (was it ever meant to be more?) and asks the honest questions. I got to speak to Summer at the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland – the lieu for the international premiere – chatted about embracing the long-take, how she found her co-lead and how she collaborated with Clayne Crawford and the odd documentary film that would become a surprising source of inspiration for her debut.

ARTICLE: ANTIGRAVITY MAGAZINE Last Looks: AG Picks for the 2023 New Orleans Film Festival, October 31, 2023

Summer Shelton does most of the heavy lifting in her first feature You & I, a romance about rekindling and reconsidering lost loves and what might have been. On top of penning her directorial debut, she also stars as Sara, either the You or the I the title speaks of, depending on how you look at it. On a trip back home to Knoxville to celebrate a mutual friend’s birthday, Sara runs into Joseph (Clayne Crawford), and the two tensely reconnect after years apart. An accident of circumstance leaves the two of them alone at his house after the small celebration, and what unfolds feels like a stage play as the former couple descends into the maelstrom of their past relationship. Through long takes and emotional dialogues, Shelton carries a film that leaves the audience questioning the past, present, and future of Sara and Joseph’s love, while pondering the parallels of their own current or former relationships, and other What Ifs. —Carlos Molina

ARTICLE: Produce Your Life Like You Produce Your Films, July 31, 2018 Published by: Dear Producer