Leave Yourself Alone, a three-time award-winning first feature debut by Nicole Eckenroad, comes to Digital HD October 9th. Eckenroad throws herself in the center of her carefully crafted narrative about a young tormented Hollywood actress followed by a pair of documentary filmmakers as she loses control of herself in method acting.
In May 2006 a 19-year-old Hollywood actress moves to Philadelphia to escape her bad reputation and restart her acting career. A pair of documentary filmmakers follows her to an undefined end as she experiments with Meisner technique, taking on the characteristics and behaviors of the characters she plays more often than her own. After losing countless roles to A-list talent, Nicole commits recklessly to a leading role in a story too close to her own and spirals into the abyss of her darkest secret.
Leave Yourself Alone is about performance and identity and depicts the lasting effect of a sexual assault on a young actress as two men film her struggle to land a break-out role. The film points a romantic gaze at a charming, innocent and naive young woman while the men behind the camera challenge the moral boundaries of keeping the camera rolling as she becomes emotionally and psychologically vulnerable. The film’s style convinces the viewer that fiction is fact and makes him consider his part as a voyeur on the victim.
“For me, this story relates very much to my experience and does for almost every woman I know,” Eckenroad states. “Our identity and behavior are a combination of societal pressures and the inequities and aggressions acted upon us. The film is admittedly rebellious and attempts to flip the experience back onto the aggressor. It manipulates the viewer’s perception to believe they are watching a true story, and you feel guilty watching this young person self-destruct as a result of a trauma that was inflicted upon her.”
About Nicole Eckenroad – Nicole’s works have been recognized for their thematic scope, boldness, and lingering impact. Leave Yourself Alone is Eckenroad’s first feature. She completed the film while working in the art department on films like The Bourne Legacy, Inside Llewyn Davis, and Trainwreck. She studied film at Temple University and her senior thesis film, The Apartment People, won the University’s Derek Freese Award for Best Film and Best Screenplay. In 2015, she was selected by Kathy Schulman, Stephanie Meyer, and Lionsgate to direct one of their seven original Twilightshorts, The Groundskeeper. She was honored at the Crystal and Lucy Awards as a Voice of the Future, and the film was presented at the ArcLight Hollywood followed by a Q&A with Stephanie Meyer. Nicole is currently in development of her second feature, Shade.
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