NYWIFT Blog

By Paige Hapeman

NYWIFT Member Haroula Rose is a filmmaker and musician from Chicago, now residing in Los Angeles. She just recently completed All Happy Families, her sophomore feature film as writer, director and producer. It had its international premiere in Galway and was released theatrically in late 2024 with Freestyle and AMC.

Her debut feature as writer/director, Once Upon a River, based on the best-selling novel, was “One of the Most Anticipated Films” in TIME Magazine and FILMMAKER, winning 19 awards at over 40 festivals worldwide.

Rose’s work has been supported by a Fulbright Fellowship in Madrid, Almanack Arts, WarnerMedia, Warner Brothers Directing Workshop, and Tribeca Film Institute. She has mentored at Sundance Film Forward, the Femme program at Utah Valley University, and has led workshops and speaking engagements through various festivals and communities.

Rose’s songs can be heard in many TV series, films and commercials. She’s released three full-length LP’s as well as remixes, singles, and EP’s with Thirty Tigers and Tone Tree Music.

We were proud to interview her earlier this year as part of our coverage of Dances with Films in LA.

Continue reading to learn more about Haroula!

NYWIFT Member Haroula Rose – by Logan Fahey

Tell us about your journey becoming a filmmaker! What sparked your interest in writing and directing?

I have always loved films since childhood. I learned about what a director did when I was hired at a recording studio, after college. We made music for commercials primarily, and I met directors who were doing commercials while also making or trying to make their films. I was also simultaneously working at a theater company, Steppenwolf, in their fledgling film department.

Once I learned that I could do all the things I loved doing under one umbrella — casting, writing, working with actors, composers, and a whole team collaboration — I found what I had been seeking and started wondering about film school or whether to just start making my own films.

We’re so glad to have you as part of the NYWIFT community. What first brought you to the organization?

After my debut feature, Once Upon A River, I did a NYWIFT virtual screening and Q&A with my cinematographer. I was living in New York, and I wanted to be a part of this community ever since. I love what you guys do to actively support filmmaking and getting the word out.  

Watch the original Q&A with Haroula Rose here.  

Haroula Rose and John Ashton on Once Upon a River

Your film All Happy Families was recently the opening film for the 15^th SOHO International Film Festival, which is headed up by NYWIFT Board Member Sibyl Reymundo-Santiago. Congratulations! How was this screening and your time at SOHO?

It was great and really special. I loved the SOHO Film Festival, and screening at the Village East Angelika no less — what a beautiful theater. It was one of several special screenings for our film that week, including the SAG/AFTRA screening that I participated in with one of my lead actors, Josh Radnor, and our premiere with AMC Theaters up at the Empire 25.

It was quite a week in New York because I also got to screen a new short film with The Future of Film Is Female at the Nitehawk in Brooklyn. My next film is set in New York, by the way, so I also was able to do some preliminary scouting and exploring. Watch the SAG/AFTRA screening for All Happy Families here.

What was your favorite part of creating and working on All Happy Families?

I really enjoyed the time we had together while filming it, in a Chicago summer. I also enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to balance the comedy with the drama in the edit. We stuck to the script but there was also some really fun improv that was discovered, and it was hard to let go of some things!

I also always love the casting process, I love actors. While the leads were all through personal connections, the entire supporting cast was a combined effort. So, getting tapes sent in or having meetings with people was fun too.

Haroula with Actor Josh Radnor on set of All Happy Families

Going back a bit in time, can you speak about what it was like for you to work on projects during the pandemic?

It was a very interesting time to be putting out my first feature! We were doing virtual screenings and publicity to support the release, all over zoom. Our premiere was at a drive-in! Aside from that unique situation, it was a time for introspection, and I did a lot of writing. I wrote this script for All Happy Families with Coby, my writing partner on this project, and wrote a whole new record of songs that I put out in 2022.

It was on one hand lonely because you couldn’t go out and make things the same way, but it was also a time for going inward which was nice in its own way.

Haroula with Kenadi Delacerna and Charlotte Hornsby on Once Upon a River

Your debut feature film Once Upon a River went to over 40 festivals and took home 19 awards prior to its distribution. That is incredible, major congratulations! What should we know about this film and is there one festival and one award that sticks out the most to you?

Thank you! A first feature is so special, a firstborn. I am beyond grateful that we had this totally unique festival run before lockdown happened, and that we had distribution sorted pre-2020 too. This story, based on the best-selling book, had me captivated and still does. In terms of making the film, it was very difficult but also dreamy. With festivals, I remember each of the festivals vividly but a few in specific to mention. One is the Gallup Film Festival in NM because we were able to go to a school nearby on the Navajo Nation and do a writing workshop with kids. The students’ drawings blew us away – we worked from their dreams.

Another one was Holba’ Pisachi’ on the Chickasaw Nation’s land in Oklahoma, which was my first time spending real time in a Native community. Tatanka Means, who is in the film, was present at these festivals and it was great to be shown around by him and the others there. It was so fun and educational for me.

We won the Golden Efebo in Palermo, Sicily, only the second American film to ever win that award. It was incredible to see how this story resonated with sold out screenings from Thessaloniki Film Festival, in my other motherland of Greece, to Italy, to Spain, the rural places across America as well as big cities. It felt really good.

You decided to push your release for Once Upon A River from March 2020 to October with your distributor. What was this experience like?

I am still sad that we weren’t able to have a proper theatrical release as we had planned, because it was 2020, but thankful that this whole journey and life had started the year before with festivals across the U.S. and internationally. We ultimately decided to put it out later that year because we just didn’t know how long we were going to have to wait. It felt like a nice story about nature, and going out into the wilderness that could be therapeutic in the time that we all had been stuck.

Haroula with Chandra Russell on All Happy Families

You were selected from a highly competitive pool of directors to write and direct a rom com short for Hello Sunshine. Congratulations! What was this selection process like and how has your experience been with writing and directing this short?

This was a lot of fun to think of and to make because it’s a fable about friendship, and fairy godmothers. It poses the question — what if your dog could kind of guide you and tell you who is a good person to date? So, we played around with that idea and had fun working on it. I liked casting the dog [laughs] and while we had deep COVID protocol measures going on, we still managed to have a good time and make the film safely for everyone.

I had worked with Johanna, my DP, before on a music video and knew we could do this in a heartbeat. Jess Weixler and Lena Drake are friends of mine, so I was happy they could do it. And Kate Micucci brought a lot of spark to the VO of the dog!

If we weren’t able to see All Happy Families at The SOHO Film Festival where can we watch your film?

It’s still making its way to select theaters and some special screenings, but it will be on VOD on October 18th! And you can pre-order it on Apple TV here.

Rodney Crowell, Becky Ann Baker, and Colleen Camp on All Happy Families

You are currently working on your next feature film. What can you tell us about this project so far?

It’s set in New York, and I have some great cast sorted out! Now we are beginning to seek out partnerships in production companies and financing. So, if you know anyone in New York who would want to know more about it, let me know!

I also have another film that is being developed and in prep that is a road movie. I am very excited about that one as well. It’s a Nicholl Fellowship-winning script, and a great story. It’s my first time not writing or co-writing, only directing, but I have been actively collaborating with the writer and producers on it for some time.

Outside of the film world, what would you like people to know about you?

I am a huge bookworm. I would love to make another adaptation. Wait, no you said outside of film! [Laughs] Well, I love to cook, am a big nerd about interior design and architecture, and someday I want to spend more time on the water. Some kind of experience that involves sailing! But I also would not be opposed to making a movie like that either 😉

Follow Haroula Rose on Instagram at @HaroulaRose and Facebook, and keep up with her through her YouTube channel.