Kristel Lleshi

I am a freelance filmmaker with experience in screenwriting, script coverage, directing, producing. I have experience interning at talent agencies, production companies, and in the legal field. I have creative and analytical writing skills, talent and brand management skills, and strong knowledge of legal processes and office management procedures.

Short Films

• July, 2021, Amy, short film, 10 minutes. Position: writer/director/producer. A short film which centers on the troubled relationship between Joanne, a stage actress whose career is going downhill, and her estranged daughter, Amy, who has just lost custody of her son and pays a visit to Joanne while she is preparing for an important audition.
• March 2022, Amanda’s House, short film, 10 minutes. Position: writer/director/producer. A short film which centers on, Amanda, a young woman who is struggling financially and works as an assistant for an upper middle-class lady. When her boss leaves home to go on vacation, she pretends to be the owner of her house so her sister and her husband who is coming to visit do not find out that she is homeless.
• August 2022, Lace-Weaver Spiders, short film, 16 minutes. Position: writer/director/producer. This is a proof-of-concept short film which will be used to attract investors, actors, and producers for the feature length screenplay where it is based on. Megan, a former addict, arrives at the house of her estranged mother, Lauren, after her infant daughter is taken by CPS.
• June 2023, Shame, short film, 15 minutes. Position: writer/director/producer. This is a short film which is currently in the pre-production stage. It centers on a middle-aged woman whose son committed a mass shooting at his high school. She suffers from agoraphobia and refuses to come out of her house. When she befriends a troubled teenager in her neighborhood, she learns to conquer her fears and overcome her guilt.

Feature-Length Screenplays

• Lace-Weaver Spiders, feature-length screenplay, 110 pages. Position: writer. This is a feature-length screenplay which is currently in development at a film production company. The screenplay focuses on Megan, a former addict who after her recent relapse her infant daughter is taken by CPS. She reunites with her estranged mother, Lauren, and is forced to sell pills in order to raise enough money to gain back custody of her daughter in the backdrop of a poverty-stricken rural American town.
• Untitled Eviction Project, feature-length screenplay, 100 pages. This is a feature-length screenplay which is still not finished. It centers on a young couple with four children who after being evicted from their trailer home, they have to find a new house for their family while struggling financially and navigating the harsh rules and regulations related to the eviction process.

Training

September 15, 2013-March 01, 2014

I completed the six-month Pro Series Online Screenwriting Program where I wrote my first feature film as well as I was able to gain a thorough knowledge on the complete process of writing a feature film.

May 06, 2014-June 10, 2014

I completed the Storywise 5-week TV Pilot Teleseminar created and taught by the acclaimed screenwriting instructor Jen Grisanti. I wrote one tv pilot as well as I was able to gain deeper knowledge on how to pitch my ideas, how to outline my script, and how to write a marketable tv pilot.

Academic Papers

1. Mulholland Drive as a Representation of Camilla’s Dream and Regret

https://onedrive.live.com/Edit.aspx?resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!2527&wdPid=2975d2ff

In this paper, I want to demonstrate by using Lacan’s theory of mirror stage and other concepts crucial to his psychoanalytic theory such as the imaginary, the symbolic order, the Real, the Other, and object petit a, to demonstrate that the first two thirds of Mulholland Drive is Camilla’s dream after Diane’s suicide which occurs in the second part of the movie.

2. Strangers in Reality: An Analysis of Jim Jarmusch’s Filmography Using Baudrillard’s Theories of the Media

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!2800&app=Word&wdnd=1&wdPreviousSession=4fa41e48%2D0aa3%2D4ae7%2D9ae7%2D853cead2ccc5

In this paper I want to demonstrate by focusing on an analysis of Jarmusch’s main works and his style such as minimal plot, fascination with otherness, miscommunication and language barriers that Jarmusch’s movies are able to capture the crude and unpolished realness of everyday life and of human interactions in a way that is free and undecorated from the conventions that Baudrillard and Foucault assert that conceal the real by creating profound cinematic works that their main goal is not only to entertain but to deeply impact and force the viewers to face the truth of their everyday life as well as the beauty of simple particles of their existence.

3. The American Dream in The O.C and Veronica Mars: A Myth or a Reality?

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!2805&app=Word&wdnd=1&wdPreviousSession=4d6e8709%2D7014%2D4458%2D9d05%2Ddf5a7355a743

The way the American Dream is portrayed in two tv series, Veronica Mars and the O.C., points to the fact that the American Dream according to Holtzman’s definition, even though it might exist only as a concept in reality, it is not attainable but is reserved to a small privileged upper middle-class group who holds the keys to an idealized version of the American Dream.

4. Complex TV as Quality TV: An analysis of Breaking Bad and other Narratively Complex Tv Series

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!2806&app=Word&wdnd=1&wdPreviousSession=a928aee2%2D29ed%2D405f%2D9bc2%2D28de17079e25

In this paper, I have used the example of the acclaimed television series Breaking Bad and compared it with other successful narratively complex tv series with episodes airing post 2010 to demonstrate that Breaking Bad with its anti-hero protagonist, gradual transformation of the main character, and its storytelling devices such as cold opens and flashbacks is a narrative complex tv series that can also be considered quality television because it creates a more engaged audience which is intellectually and emotionally challenged by the unexpected events in the narrative.

5. Beauty as Happiness: The Quest of the Characters in American Beauty towards Happiness

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!2808&app=Word&wdnd=1&wdPreviousSession=ed4ccb12%2D13c4%2D4051%2D8569%2D91e4195af749

In this paper, I have purported to give a new interpretation of the movie American Beauty by using Nietzche and Freud’s ideas on happiness and becoming one’s self as well as by analyzing the movie’s directorial style to demonstrate that one meaning of the movie can be the quest of the main protagonist, Lester, as well as of the other characters, to achieve their versions of happiness in their lives by breaking down the conventions of the modern society which have blinded the characters from the transcendental and small particles of their existence that contain the beauty in their life and thus the meaning of their existence.

6. Netlix’s Dilemma: Is Television’s Audience Free When Watching Netflix?

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!2814&app=Word&wdnd=1&wdPreviousSession=b4af7009%2De445%2D40ca%2Db45f%2Db6e0d284a096

Netflix has had a dual effect on the television audience because it appears that the television audience has more control and more freedom to choose but at the same time it has restricted the viewers’ choices by offering to them selections that are similar to what they seen before and eliminates the sharedness that the watching experience entails. Moreover, this effect of restricting the viewers’ choices that Netflix has can be more pronounced for an international audience watching television through the binge-watch model because it makes them less active by offering to them productions which are inside their comfort zone in terms of their cultural and societal background.

7. The evolving relationship of Tracy and Dexter in The Philadelphia Story

https://onedrive.live.com/Edit.aspx?resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!1164&wdPid=3771f4ea

8. Research Paper on Hitchcock’s Vertigo

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?cid=009e9bcd76c293b3&page=view&resid=9E9BCD76C293B3!1340&parId=9E9BCD76C293B3!107&app=Word&wacqt=search

9. Gus Van Sant's Directorial Style and Themes in his Auteur Films

Languages
Albanian (fluent, native proficiency), English (fluent), Italian (fluent), Spanish (limited proficiency), French (limited proficiency)