Clearwater native Laura Chinn forged a creative path out of her chaotic upbringing by digging deep into all its tragi-comic facets. The writer, actor and now director created and starred in the 2019 series “Florida Girls,” and in 2022, published “Acne,” a memoir in which severe skin problems were only part of her teenage tumult. Part of the book is about the loss of her brother Max to brain cancer. In 2005, Max was admitted to Suncoast Hospice, amid the protests and pandemonium sparked by the presence of another patient, Terri Schiavo, and the legal battle over the removal of her feeding tube.

Nothing funny about any of that, right? But in her feature directorial debut, Chinn finds the uneasy alliance between humor, pain and raw truths, reshaping her autobiography into a fictional coming-of-age story about a mixed-race teenage girl (Doris, played by Nico Parker) and her single mom (Kristine, played by Laura Linney) who cope and rage and cry it all out as the onscreen Max (Nate, played by the one-named actor Amarr) fades away inside the hospice center. “With commendable wit and zero self-pity, Chinn sketches the daily surreality of her teenage analogue, Doris, and mother, Kristine, navigating a gantlet of protesters who call the hospice an execution chamber,” wrote critic Amy Nicholson in The New York Times. Trapped between her dying brother’s situation and her own erupting adolescence, Doris begins hosting raucous house parties to boost her marginal social status at her Christian high school, while Kristine spends long nights at the hospice–a scenario that portends an explosive inevitability.

The film, which also stars Woody Harrelson as a kind-hearted protester who befriends Doris, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was honored with a special jury award for breakthrough performance for Parker (“The Last of Us”). It’s now streaming on Hulu. Flamingo met up with Chinn recently via Zoom to chat about how her life has shaped her art, recreating 2005 Clearwater in Charleston, S.C. (where the film was shot) and what her mom thinks about all this.

WHAT WAS CHALLENGING ABOUT THIS FILM COMPARED TO YOUR EARLIER FLORIDA-THEMED WORK?

I’m from the west coast of Florida. The sunsets are so beautiful. The water, these white sand beaches. It’s so cinematic and so beautiful. But when we found out that we were going to have to shoot the majority of it in Charleston, I felt like we had more time and space and money and energy to dedicate to really honing a look and figuring out how to really honor Florida and show this beauty. Our cinematographer, Bruce Francis Cole, he’s such a photographer, he’s a visual artist in a way that was an incredible luxury. Bruce and I had many meetings about color, and how to capture the blues, the aquas and the pinks. That’s what a movie allowed that I think nothing else could have.

SO YOU CAST CHARLESTON AS FLORIDA?

Our location manager is from Florida, so she was able to really hone in on spots and homes and things that she felt evoked Florida. And we went to Clearwater to shoot a bunch of big exterior wides (wide shots).

I TOTALLY BOUGHT IT. GOING BACK TO THIS PIVOTAL, TRAUMATIC POINT IN YOUR LIFE, WHERE DID YOU TAKE ARTISTIC LICENSE WITH YOUR OWN STORY?

I took so much artistic license. I was trying to capture the way it felt to go through this when you’re young–using those emotions as a blueprint: What character helps bring out that feeling? What character helps bring out the feeling of jealousy when your sibling is sick and they’re getting all the attention? What character helps bring out the feeling of guilt? You know, when you’re not there for your sick relative as much as you think you should be? My brother got sick when I was 13, and he passed away when I was 19. And so, for those six years, I felt so many things and all of these characters, the weight, all the story turns, everything was an attempt to capture all those feelings. I invented, you know, every possible detail to evoke that, the non-invented detail is the Terri Schiavo element, but everything else was just me weaving a story.

IT’S IRONIC THAT THE ONE DETAIL THAT SEEMS MOST LIKE A PLOT DEVICE IS REAL. NO ONE WHO LIVED IN FLORIDA AT THAT TIME WOULD EVER FORGET IT. 

So many people compliment me on that device and I’m like, “That was really God or whoever, that wasn’t my idea to do that. That was the twist of fate that brought us to that moment.”

WAS IT CATHARTIC TO WRITE THOSE SCENES?

It was very, very cathartic. I spent a lot of time in therapy, combing through these emotions over the years. The real, true catharsis has come from sharing it … people reacting with and relating to the story, relating to the characters, relating to the grief elements. That’s been really, really healing and amazing.

HAS YOUR MOM SEEN THE MOVIE YET?

Yeah, she actually came to Sundance. She came to the set, too. Her and Laura Linney would be chatting in a corner and I was like (to myself): “Just walk away, Laura, don’t get involved.” My mom’s amazing. Kristine is a fictional character and my mom knows that. She’s been very, very, very supportive. I’ve self-exploring through writing about my family and about very personal things. My parents have been exceptionally cool about it. I know not all people react that way when you’re writing personal stories, but I think for my mom, she was able to separate herself enough from the story. I think she appreciated seeing that experience more from my point of view, and she got a lot of catharsis out of that.

I FELT BAD FOR THE KID WHO PLAYS YOUR BROTHER. IT’S KIND OF A “KEVIN COSTNER IN THE BIG CHILL” PART.

He did such a good job. People do shout it out a lot, and they should, because he’s so incredible. He took it so seriously. He would never laugh, never break. You’ve got Laura Linney and Nico wrestling with his body and he’s just stone. He took it so seriously and was always coming up and being like “Do you have any notes for me?”

WHAT’S MOST COMPELLING FOR YOU WHEN YOU COME HOME FOR A VISIT?

I’m obsessed with the ocean. When I was a teenager, I was like, “I have to get out of here.” Now when I go back, I’m like, “This is heaven.” I mean, it’s paradise. I wanted to be in Hollywood and I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. So I felt very confined by Florida. Now when I visit, I’m plotting out the house I’m going to buy to ultimately live there forever. It’s the natural beauty that really is so special to me. Sunsets on the west coast are so beautiful. I have friends that have opened restaurants and Disneyland has become very cute. Tampa has become super bougie and chic. I’ve developed a ton of Florida pride over the years.

THERE’S A BROAD SCOPE OF FLORIDA MOVIES–FLORIDA PROJECTS, IF YOU WILL–THESE DAYS. ANY FAVES?

I love “The Florida Project” so much. “Moonlight.” “Moonlight” is exquisite. I’ll shout out to “Dolphin Tale,” because that was filmed in Clearwater. We were all really excited when that was filming, that dolphin Winter, who was at the Clearwater Aquarium, was a celebrity in our town. So I’ll shout out to that dolphin.