By Shannon Musgrave
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week, and one of the films in the Shorts Program is long on CMU talent!
“Goodnight” is directed and co-written by Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama alumna Isabel Pask (Class of 2017). Its cast and creative team is comprised of nearly a dozen more School of Drama alumni, and it will be screened this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
The film tells the story of a hospice nurse, Daria, who hires Max, her children’s babysitter, to babysit her for the night—to feed her, bathe her, play games with her, and put her to sleep, as if she were a child. In her director’s statement, Pask says the film “examines what happens when we grow up and forget how to play. What came so naturally to us as children becomes increasingly difficult as we become the caretakers.”
FORGING A PATH TO FILMMAKING
Pask studied acting at CMU with a minor in creative writing, and after graduation, began exploring independent filmmaking with some of her former classmates. Her first film project was a spoken word piece she wrote and performed, titled “This is Not a Love Letter.” It was produced by CNT Productions – a company founded and run by School of Drama alumni Ariel Zucker and Daryl Bright Clay (both from the Class of 2017) – and directed by Zucker. Pask found the experience to be creatively fulfilling in a way that was different and more expansive than acting.
“The fun thing about independent film is you get to do it all yourself,” she said. “In a way, it’s very much like Playground [a festival of independent student work] at CMU. You get to do it on your own terms, and create an environment that you want to create, and work with the people you want to work with.”
And so, when it was time to direct her own project, she did just that. “Goodnight,” which she co-wrote with Annie Fox, is Pask’s first foray into directing, and the team she assembled – from producers to editors, and designers to actors – is primarily made up of CMU alumni.
The “Goodnight” team from CMU includes:
Iris Beaumier – Producer
Henry Blazer – Production Designer
Jack Cherry – Production Assistant
Daryl Bright Clay – Creative Producer & Actor
Jack Dentinger – Creative Producer
Dagmara Dominczyk – Lead Actor
Nix Lopinto – Costume Designer
Isabel Pask – Director & Co-Writer
Victoria Pedretti – Production Assistant
Brenna Power – Producer/Editor
Michelle Veintimilla – Actor
John Way – Producer
Eric Wiegand – Creative Producer & Actor
Many of these collaborators are part of an unofficial CMU collective. They support each other’s independent film projects in various capacities in exchange for support on their own projects when they arise. These artists, who have forged a path from theater school into film and other media, are a small but tight-knit community, Pask says.
“There’s a lot of fun jumping over jobs and lines, and I think we all get really excited about helping each other.”
Although the School of Drama is not a film school, Pask says the training she and her classmates received there certainly helped prepare them for the world of independent filmmaking. The commitment to collaboration, the deep understanding of character and storytelling, the ability to communicate with each other and with an audience, and their education and experience in the technical aspects of theater making all come into play when they are collaborating on a film.
Although the School of Drama is not a film school, Pask says the training she and her classmates received there certainly helped prepare them for the world of independent filmmaking. The commitment to collaboration, the deep understanding of character and storytelling, the ability to communicate with each other and with an audience, and their education and experience in the technical aspects of theater making all come into play when they are collaborating on a film.
A LEGENDARY LEADING LADY
Dagmara Dominczyk graduated from the School of Drama in 1998 and went on to build a muscular and expansive career on Broadway, film, and television. Most recently she appeared in Sofia Coppola’s biographical drama “Priscilla,” playing Ann Beaulieu, Priscilla Presley’s mother. She also starred opposite Olivia Colman and Dakota Johnson in Maggie Gyllenhall’s psychological drama “The Lost Daughter.” “Succession” fans know her as Karolina, the no-nonsense head of PR for Waystar RoyCo. And this year’s Sundance goers will see her star in Pask’s “Goodnight.”
Dominczyk and her husband, actor and fellow CMU alumnus Patrick Wilson, have remained steadfast champions of students and alumni of the School of Drama. Pask recalls her freshman year when Dominczyk visited campus and spoke to her class.
“My whole class was really just blown away by her,” Pask said. “She was so generous and kind and cool. She talked really openly and frankly about the difficulties of this industry, things that are not necessarily part of the actual art of acting, but a lot of the business parts that are really pervasive.”
Pask said it especially resonated as a young woman artist, getting ready to enter the industry.
“All the women in my class were so obsessed with her.”
Dominczyk returned to the school during Pask’s senior year, when she got to speak with her again. Cut to five years later, Pask and Fox had just finished the script for “Goodnight.” As writers, they were particularly interested in character-driven work, coming from acting backgrounds themselves, and so the piece, Pask says, really leans on the two lead actors. When it came time to think about casting, they decided Fox would play the character of Max, the babysitter, and Pask immediately thought of Dominczyk for the character of Daria, the hospice nurse.
She wrote a letter to Dominczyk, telling her what an impression she had made on her as a student, and how much she admired her work. She asked if she would read her script and consider playing the role of Daria.
“What made me say yes to the project was where all my yeses begin,” Dominczyk said, “and that is the script; the story being told. It had to grab me on the page. And it did grab me. As a woman and a mother, the idea that we could ‘play’ again if we were allowed, or if we allowed ourselves, hit home. And the second thing that made me say yes was Isabel. The letter she wrote to me was genuine and impassioned, and let me know that the people involved in this project would work hard and be kind. And that’s really important to me as well.”
TO SUNDANCE AND BEYOND
Pask likened the process of applying to film festivals to that of applying to colleges. With so many to consider, each with their own application fees and required materials, it can feel a little daunting. And, like with the college admission process, there are a few that rank among the best, Sundance being one of the top festivals and CMU being one of the top drama schools. Receiving the call that “Goodnight” was accepted to Sundance felt a lot like receiving the call that she had been admitted to CMU, Pask said, with one important difference:
“It’s not just me who gets to celebrate. I got to call everyone who worked on this, my friends, and tell them we got in. And now we get to go do this thing together.”
Just 57 short films were selected for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, chosen from 11,153 submissions. The festival runs from January 23–February 2 in person in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, with a selection of titles available online from January 30–February 2.
Pask and her team hope the time and connections made at the festival will help to propel the film, and themselves as filmmakers. They have received support through crowdfunding from friends, family, and professors, which helped get them to Sundance, and they are continuing their fundraising efforts for the film’s continued life.
“Emerging artists are the future. The literal future,” said Dominczyk. “They will create our stories. They will give us our words. Especially young female artists who have such a complex and interesting vantage point. All that to me is incredibly important – to support artists who create projects that they want to bring to life and who FIGHT to bring those projects to life. There’s something so inspiring and pure about it.”
School of Drama at Sundance
“Goodnight”
“Goodnight” is a short film directed and co-written by Isabel Pask, starring Dagmara Dominczyk and featuring the work of many School of Drama alumni.
A hospice nurse revisits the comfort and fear of childhood when she hires a babysitter to take care of her for the night.
“Ricky”
Professor Kaja Dunn worked as intimacy coordinator for the film “Ricky” – one of the most anticipated feature-length films of the 2025 Sundance Festival’s U.S Dramatic Competition.
Newly released after being locked up in his teens, 30-year-old Ricky navigates the challenging realities of life post-incarceration, and the complexity of gaining independence for the first time as an adult.
“Speak”
Alumnus Josh Gad is an executive producer on “Speak” – part of the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Documentary Competition.
Five top-ranked high school oratory students spend a year crafting spellbinding spoken word performances with the dream of winning one of the world’s largest and most intense public speaking competitions.