Filmmaker Marina Rice Bader recently premiered her latest movie, Ava’s Impossible Things, at this year’s Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival.
Bader’s movie, under her production outfit Soul Kiss Films, is her latest work, and she’s been releasing on the average a movie a year since she started.
But who exactly is Marina Rice Bader? Born in Canada, Bader started as an actress in Texas. However, when she moved to Los Angeles, she became a photographer.
The year 2009 was life-changing for Bader: she met her first girlfriend, Nicole Conn, and became a lesbian. She also started working in movies again.
Here are three things about her that you may not know:
Marina Rice Bader started late in life
As noted earlier, everything changed for Bader in 2009. Prior to that, she had never thought of making movies or being a lesbian– her concern then was raising her children.
“Other women were changing the world, and while I was bringing up three amazing children, the rest of me felt hollow and unsatisfied. In the end I’m not sure if it was my belief that I had nothing important to offer the world or if it was simply fear, the enemy of all things good,” Bader said.
“Honestly, it annoys the shit out of me that I spent 52 years living that way, but the reason I mention it is that anyone can get past this kind of self-sabotaging crap and become the badass woman they always wanted to be no matter their age or lingering childhood issues,” she added.
Despite lacking experience in creating movies, Bader had one thing going for her: “I have had a lifelong love affair with movies, and at 53 I took a huge leap of faith and started Soul Kiss Films, a production company dedicated to making evocative, compelling, and entertaining movies by, for, and about women.”
“I had no experience making films, but it’s the only career I could even imagine doing for the rest of my life. The decision came after many months of painful self-reflection and the realization that I would still be hollow 30 years from then if I didn’t make a radical move,” she said.
Marina Rice Bader learned through movies
More than anything, movies are an integral part of Bader’s life. When asked about her most significant creative influences, she replied: “Movies! I adore leaving the theater or my living room to enter the world created for me.”
Movies certainly helped Bader learn about being a lesbian. She said that after falling in love with Conn, she watched movies to get a handle on being a lesbian.
“I had never fell in love with a woman before, never even kissed a woman. So, when you are walking into an entirely new world, you do your research by watching movies,” she said.
That was when she saw the need for good lesbian movies: “I rented so many lesbian movies that I noticed there were some really good ones but also some terrible ones because of the lack of chemistry between the actors.”
Hence, the first movie she made with Conn was their love story remade into a movie, Elena Undone. Though she later split up with Conn, her love for creating movies continued.
Marina Rice Bader represents the LGBT community
Having been introduced to movies and being a lesbian by Conn, Bader now champions both in the movies that she makes.
“We could use more films with well-rounded LGBTQ+ characters, and I hope in some way I’m helping to address that issue,” Bader said.
She added: “I have unwavering commitment to the LGBT community to keep telling their stories, which are our stories, and the stories of women, which show the rest of the world that we’re all walking the same walk: We love, we have kids, we struggle with relationships, money, our place in the world, and every human being goes through the same thing.”
You can check out Lesbian News’ feature on Marina Rice Bader in our latest issue here. You can also view the trailer for her latest movie below:
