Director: Irene Turner

Cast: Soleil Moon Frye, Wil Wheaton, Cat Taber, Gary Wolf, Michelle Brookhurst, Crystall Carmen

Country: U.S.
Year: 2000
Running Time: 101
Min. Format: 35mm

Anyone who remembers Soleil Moon Frye as television's lovable Punky Brewster will be floored by her performance in The Girls' Room - our spunky little pig-tailed kid has grown-up into a feisty young smart-talking, pot-smoking, ass-kicking woman. Frye stars in The Girls' Room as Casey, a rebellious undergrad at a traditional Southern University. She constantly butts heads with her roommate, Grace (Cat Taber), a (stereotypical?) Southern Belle engaged to nice guy Charlie (Wil Wheaton: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stand by Me, and 2001 Maryland Film Festival short The Good Things). Grace spends much of her time planning her "perfect" wedding, preparing to live a "perfect" life. Casey's life is far less determined: she keeps her options open with a number of different relationships. Each secretly envies the other.

First-time director Irene Turner gives the material the balance it deserves mining the situations for comic, ironic surprises. The result is a wonderful debut feature that exemplifies the merits of independent filmmaking.

-Gabriel Wardell

Presented By: Irene Turner and Amanda L. Beall

Irene Turner received her bachelor's degree in theater from Stanford and then spent seven years in theater and opera production before returning to school to receive her master's degree in Film Production from U.S.C. Though this is her feature film directorial debut, she has worked as a producer on several short and feature films including the Sundance hit, Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss.

Amanda L. Beall was raised in equal parts in the North and South. She spent summers at the coin-op car wash and the rest of the year at a Connecticut boarding school before attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Girls' Room is her first produced screenplay.