Submitted photo Alisha Gaddis is shown during her Columbus visit last month and is pictured with friend and producer Liz Cleland.
Alisha Gaddis is a stand-up comic. A Latin Grammy-winning singer with her husband in the Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band. An actress with her spouse in their former PBS Emmy-winning children’s show “Lishy Lou and Lucky Too.” A children’s book author and comedy book author. A TV script writer.
And now a filmmaker.
The former part-time Columbus resident will shoot a few scenes of her new short film “Reborn,” at Ames Mercantile Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon in downtown Columbus. Her first short, “Alone Together” that she wrote and starred in and her spouse scored, is currently making the rounds at metro film festivals.
Parts of that film also were shot in Columbus.
“Reborn,” expected to run 12 minutes or shorter, focuses on adults with what is known as reborn dolls — expensive, nearly-realistic babies that are treated almost like real children. When Gaddis first read of such, she was stunned.
“I thought it was creepy,” she said.
But later, she was slightly ashamed for so quickly dismissing an entire group of people — especially when she discovered from online interviews that some of these mothers never have been able to conceive, or are those who have lost a child, or are moms of grown children and achingly miss the responsibility of motherhood.
“I always have found myself becoming an ally to all kinds of disenfranchised groups,” she said while driving through Los Angeles, where she lives.
In the small-budget film, Gaddis plays Cassidy, who lovingly cuddles and protects her baby doll named Ava. In fact, in one scene possibly to be filmed here, she pushes a stroller down the sidewalk. The baby dolls rests in the stroller.
The character is presented as secure and mentally stable. Furthermore, Gaddis has instructed the crew to refrain from mocking-style jokes about the dolls on set. Making the filming slightly more unusual is the fact that director Moreen Litrell will be calling the shots virtually via a livestream connection with the crew.
Financial support for the film includes help from The Heritage Fund — the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County, the Columbus Area Arts Council, and the Indiana Arts Commission. Friend and Columbus resident Liz Cleland is serving as one of the producers, just as she did on Gaddis’ previous short.
“Liz Cleland is extraordinary,” Gaddis said. “I honestly could not do any of this without her.”
Cleland, with a background in film production, is thrilled to get to use some of the skill she learned in college.
“Alisha’s creativity is just nonstop,” Cleland said. “It’s so nice to be connected to her and be around all that energy of hers. … And it’s nice to be able to help connect her to people in Columbus.”
Husband Ben Cleland is planning to handle post-production audio. Gaddis has been working hard to trim a 19-page script to something more manageable while still packing an emotional wallop in the flick. She said she even will make room for tasteful humor.
“It is a very vulnerable subject,” Gaddis said. “I have so many friends, for instance, who really wanted to have a child — and some spent all their savings (trying), but still were unable.”
