Lauren Owen, FCLC 2025

Major: New Media and Digital Design

Bio: Originating from sunny Southern California, I am a filmmaker, writer, and digital designer whose work centers on powerful, often overlooked narratives within alternate spaces. Driven by an affinity for heavy metal (among other alternative communities) and a commitment to challenging stereotypes, I seek to illuminate complex issues such as gender dynamics and expressive freedom, especially in the scope of feminism and queerness. While "Brain Damage" is my official directing debut, thanks to the Fordham Summer Research and Creative Practice Grant, I have several other credits, including a script produced on the soundstages of UCLA, an award-winning Claymation short, and a 48-hr experimental film produced for a competition/festival.

Title of Research: Brain Damage - A Short Film Exploring Religious OCD, Soccer, and Addiction

Mentor: Christopher Vicari, Communication and Media Studies

Abstract: "My debut film, "Brain Damage," follows Brandy, a college soccer player, six months sober, who is struggling to reconcile who she is without alcohol or her strict father controlling her life. During a soccer game, a concussion-fueled vision of a demon named Billy challenges/tempts her to fight for what she wants most. She struggles with loss of faith and sense of self, and searches for extreme measures to take her life back. The film ends on an ambiguous note, where the audience isn’t sure whether Brandy gets what she wants, forcing the audience to question the nature of free will and self-destruction.

Before starting production, I researched religious obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which closely aligns with Brandy's symptoms. Religious OCD is a very unexplored disorder, especially since many sufferers are devout, only reaching out to priests without seeking psychological help. By incorporating elements of psychological horror: unsettling visuals, sound design, and fragmented editing, I hope to immerse the audience in Brandy’s distress, reflecting the cyclical, intrusive nature of her thoughts.

Through reading theological and psychological texts, as well as interviewing a subject with religious OCD, I made several discoveries that took shape throughout development and production. I identified a correlation between alcoholism and religious OCD, I conceptualized how a character with this disorder might experience a demonic vision, and I contextualized Brandy's narrow focus on what is sinful, highlighting her pathological religious principles. I incorporated these ideas into the script and the visual design of the film, and the story became more representative of the disorder.