An Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Penelope Lawson
We chat with Penelope Lawson about her short film, The Dinner Party, her experience founding her own production company, and fun cinema.

Follows veterans and active-duty service members from varied backgrounds who come together to combat their traumas through the written word in a USO-sponsored arts workshop at Walter Reed National Military Hospital.
We chat with Penelope Lawson about her short film, The Dinner Party, her experience founding her own production company, and fun cinema.
The plot could’ve really been interesting if the elements of lycanthropy was integrated with perhaps the struggle of identity of being LGBTQ+. It's an experience for so many that as they’re starting to realizing their true selves, they feel like a monster, especially if they come from unsupportive homes or communities. Instead, the horror and transformation elements seem thrown in without contemplation of how this could deepen the narrative.
The film blends reality and the supernatural world together, leaving the viewer unsure of what’s real and what’s merely a figment of Michael’s agitated imagination.
In Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (1986), we follow the love life of powerful female protagonist Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) and explore the relationship dynamics she has with her partners. She sees three men simultaneously: Greer Childs, (John Canada Terrell) Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee), and Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks). Though an 80’s film, She’s Gotta Have It is surprisingly progressive with its themes of female sexuality, although at some points in the film it is handled clumsily. Overall Nola is an incredibly compelling character especially for modern women, as we as a society acknowledge female sensuality more and more without the negative stigma.
It is the attention to detail that makes Wolfwalkers resonate more than Luca for Queer representation