Briana La La Trise

Passionate independent director, writer, and producer Briana La Trise was born and raised in the small city, Canton, Ohio, to a single mother, a licensed social worker, and a younger sister. The quiet and shy Virgo child watched television and movies and listened to music to find peace in her introverted bubble. However, craving self-expression, she would journal her thoughts, draw, and act out scenes from her favorite stories. Currently, she is a freelance script reader, writing coverages for writers and producers. Briana is in pre-production for her film, Fame City, scheduled to shoot in early November. As a screenwriter, she is working on two short films, a sci-fi drama web series, a feature-length romantic drama, The Book of Kina, and an occult drama feature-length trilogy, Sex Magic.

As a child, Briana wanted to be an actress, among many other creative identities. She gravitated towards her grandmother's RCA camcorder, using it to film mundane things around the house and events like her sweet sixteen. Briana took drama and video production classes throughout her junior high and high school years. Her sophomore year, she made her first film, Teenage Terror, and felt the tingles of inspiration and passion, knowing filmmaking was her path. Led her to enroll in her school’s Light and Sound program junior year, learning stage tech, sound production, and video while being the only girl in the class besides her teacher Ms. Frank. Then, she enrolled in college, earned her AAS in Video Media Production at Stark State College. There she won The Best Short Film award as a director for Poetic Kill. Then transferred to Cleveland State University, received her BA in Film Production. After college, she moved back home, recovered from thyroid surgery while working part-time jobs as a Cinemark Concessionist and a Sharpshooter Sales Photographer at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. She started writing her scripts to ease the pain of the daily routine of minimum wage pay and boredom.

In 2019, she quit her job at the HOF to focus on her craft and freelancing. While focused on filmmaking, she also writes poetry when the mood strikes her, hoping to publish her first poetry book in the near future. Dealing with the Covid pandemic and changes within her family has impacted her creativity. Her grandmother died in 2020 from dementia, and her mother currently has stage 5 kidney failure. Her ancestry inspires her, their complex life lessons and traumas, and their overall experiences. Including her pain, trauma, and joys shape her creativity. She writes about the black experience, spirituality, the human psyche and condition, culture, and societal changes. Film-wise, she’s inspired by Spike Lee and Kasi Lemon’s (Eve’s Bayou), Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock, Black Cinema. Books from Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, and Nnedi Okorafor. Music from various artists in the hip hop, r&b, soul, jazz, and electronica genre.

Outside of filmmaking, she’s spinning her records, engaging in photography, writing poetry, journaling, and meditating, drinking her favorite mocha ice coffee or kombucha. Next, she plans to enter Fame City into film festivals, officially start her production company, sell a feature, film another project, and write more scripts. She wants her films to impact culture, to engage, heal those going through traumas through storytelling. Trauma is a condition one can overcome and heal through self-expression and innovation, only limited by our understanding of self.