Niva Dorell + Christola Phoenix + Misa Dayson

THE LOTTO LINE is a short film inspired by an excerpt from Christola Phoenix’s memoir “Paper Curls and Peanut Earrings” — a coming-of-age tale — set in 1950s and 60s Harlem, NY.  The original excerpt, “The Lotto Line” was published in Roxane Gay’s publication The Audacity in 2022.

The film begins on a summer day in Harlem, NY when 75-year-old Christola, a retired nurse, is in line at her corner bodega waiting to place her daily lottery numbers. A young woman enters who doesn’t have enough money to buy a roll of bread. Like everyone else in the bodega, Christola doesn’t offer to help her. But the young woman’s desperation triggers Christola’s memories of her own childhood, growing up poor in a one-room tenement apartment with her mother, Rosalee. On the rare occasion when Rosalee’s numbers would hit, allowing them to afford a decent meal, she insisted on sharing that meal with their neighbor down the hall. “When we have, we share,” Rosalee would tell Young Christola. 

Unable to shake the young woman from her mind, adult Christola tosses and turns at night in her luxury apartment, the same one she and Rosalee once viewed as a model apartment when she was a child. When she wakes up, she asks the Universe’s forgiveness for not helping the young woman in the bodega and vows to do better next time. Days later, at a crucial moment, she gets just such an opportunity, but will she step off the lotto line and help?
 

How did this three-way collaboration come about?  

ND: I first encountered Christola’s story, The Lotto Line,  when she read it to a few of us in residence with her at Millay Arts in April 2022. I was immediately struck by its visceral poignancy and level of detail. I could see, feel, and hear the world that she was describing and was deeply moved by the true story of a moment in her daily routine that ended up having a profound effect on her life. Her story seemed to perfectly symbolize the urgent need for more compassion in today’s world, a theme that is close to my heart and resonates in all my films. 

A testament to the power of Christola’s story is that I was still thinking about it months later. In the fall of 2022, I wrote to Christola asking if we could get together. During our meeting I asked if she would consider letting me adapt The Lotto Line into a short film and direct it. I was thrilled and humbled when she said yes to both.

CP: I did the final edits during my residency at Millay Arts of The Lotto Line, an excerpt from my memoir which was about to be published. One evening during our after round table dinner discussion, it was suggested, if you wanted, to share your work with your fellow residents after dinner. I was the last to read, and after my last spoken word of The Lotto Line, there was radio silence.  After a few minutes, my fellow residents commented on the beauty of my story of place, time and the character. Niva was the last to comment and she was visually and emotionally moved. I was emotionally moved by comments from my fellow writers that my story was really good and resonated with them.

Late Fall of 2022 I received an email from Niva that she was coming to the city and wondered if I would be around for lunch to catch up, and  also, she wanted to propose an idea to me. We set a date and we met for lunch. I wondered, what was it she wanted to propose to me?

We met for lunch in Harlem. It was good to see Niva again. Niva was the best cook during our weekend dinners at Millay Arts,  and I complimented her again for her culinary skills. Niva shared with me how moved she was by my story and how it has stayed with her, and she wanted to do a short film of The Lotto Line.

“A SHORT FILM OF THE LOTTO LINE?” I blurted out in the restaurant and a few heads turned my way. She suggested that I think about it.  I could not control the stretch of my grin showcasing my front tooth gap. I thought about it for one day. I said yes.

And then there was Misa!

ND: There have been quite a few serendipitous moments in the process of making this film so far. One of them was discovering that Christola’s daughter Misa is also a film producer and filmmaker. The three of us had several meetings early on at Christola’s place over Indian food where we talked about how to write the film. Film adaptations, even autobiographical ones, are never 100% literal. There’s always some degree of dramatization to make the story work for the screen. Misa has been instrumental in helping to find the right balance in the script and will continue to do so when we shoot the film. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have her support. She has also brought essential partners to the project, including producer Dessa Vanderhorst, who used to work on the TV show POSE.

The fact that Misa also had a residency at Millay is yet another one of those things that make the project feel both connected to Millay in a very unique way and somehow destined to be. 

CP: When I received notification of my acceptance to Millay Arts, I immediately shared the news with my daughters, Misa and Robin. Misa is in the film industry. She said she did some quiet bragging to her friends about her Mom being accepted to Millay Arts. In her research she discovered there was a residency program for parents. She being a first-time parent  of a child born during Covid-19, finding time and space to write and work on her project was hit and miss. Unbeknownst to me she applied for a residency fellowship at Millay Arts and got it! I did bragging rights about her. I shared with Misa Niva’s proposal to do a short film of The Lotto Line, and she was very supportive of the project.  

MD: When I wanted to email my friends who know my Mom–and have been enthusiastically curious about, and supportive of, her writing career journey after she retired from nursing– that she had received yet another awesome writing residency, I couldn’t remember the exact details about Millay. As I researched the website for information to include in my email announcement, I was excited to learn about Millay’s partnership with Pen Parentis. This partnership offered shorter residency stays for writers who were parents of children younger than 18 in an effort to make artists residencies more inclusive of, and accessible to, writer parents. At the time I was navigating how to find time to write in between balancing the work of taking care of my then-18 month old child, and the work of earning a salary. I decided to take a leap of faith and quietly applied for the residency. To this day I remain thankful that I was accepted into Millay’s Core Residency; I wrote more in 2 weeks there than I had in two months! 

In between all of this going on, my Mom shared with me how much she enjoyed both her residency at Millay, and meeting a new friend, Niva Dorell. For months she kept saying that she wanted Niva and I to meet because Niva was also a writer and film director. Towards the end of the year, our schedules aligned and the three of us met for dinner at my Mom’s home. That’s when Niva shared with me her vision for turning The Lotto Line into a film. I was struck by the beauty and care in how Niva articulated her vision for turning the short story into a film, and could literally see the film as she spoke it. It reminded me of how I first felt when I read the the story, and knew that viewing audiences would feel the same way  after watching Niva’s film.

So at where is the “The Lotto Line” now?

ND: We are currently in the fundraising stage of THE LOTTO LINE and will begin pre-production in the spring of 2025. We plan to have the film completed by August 2025.

Can you share something about your experience at Millay Arts?

ND: The nature surrounding Millay was a never ending source of inspiration. We were there in April, when the area is between winter and spring. One day it would snow, the next it would all be melted, then it would rain, then everything would be covered in mist, then the sun would come out and it was hot! Every evening at dinner we would share some new discovery that we encountered on our individual walks every day: blue animal droppings on the walking path (what kind of animal was that? we wondered), freshly hatched tadpoles struggling to survive in the nearby puddles, a patch of green where there hadn’t been the day before. One night a young bear loped across the field by the main house at sunset, apparently unaware of the seven human faces pressed up against the glass staring at it. What a sight! Another time we were singing around the firepit at night and some animal in the woods responded with something between a howl and a hoot. We would sing, it would hoot, we would sing a little more, it would hoot again…and on we went for an entire song. It was hilarious and beautiful and magical all at once. 

CP: Donna’s cooking. Soooooo GOOD.

MD: Donna’s cooking for sure. She can BURN, okay?! And for those who don’t know, that’s a colloquial way of saying, she can COOK! Another standout was the sheer beauty of the natural world around us. I had never spent time in that part of New York State before, and every day on my walks felt like I had either entered an enchanted forest, or nature’s church. I could never decide. I’m such a city girl, and so I felt like such a wide-eyed innocent child astounded in wonder when, on the last evening of our residency, right after dinner, a big old Black Bear ambled up Millay’s driveway to poke around the garbage bins for food. We were all standing around–not so many yards away–pointing and saying to each other, “Woah! Oh my goodness! Do you see this?!” And I thought it was hilarious that while that was going on, the bear, besides a brief pause and uninterested glance to the side, paid us no mind and meandered back on down the road (that I often walked!) like it was just a regular day in the neighborhood.WANT TO GET INVOLVED? 

HELP MAKE THE LOTTO LINE HAPPEN>>