🦋 Making CHRYSALIS: Breaking the Silence, Building the Fire

By Micki Rose

When I first wrote Chrysalis, I didn’t expect it to drain me an heal me at the same time.

It’s the kind of story that stays in your bones long after the cameras stop rolling — not just because of the subject matter, but because every frame demanded something real from everyone involved. Emotionally, spiritually, and artistically, this film was a transformation — and not just for the characters.

It was for all of us.

🎬 The Story That Needed to Be Told

Chrysalis was born from a question I think many of us silently ask: What happens when survival is no longer enough?

The film follows Diana, a young woman living in a world of expectations, appearances, and quiet torment. She is a reflection of many — a daughter raised to be beautiful and obedient, who ends up weaponizing the very silence that once caged her.

Her story is not easy. It’s not polished. It’s messy, violent, and real.

And that was the point.

⚠️ A Responsibility, Not Just a Script

Before production even began, I knew this project carried weight.

The themes of sexual assault, generational trauma, and familial betrayal aren’t plot devices — they’re truths people live with. That required care behind the camera, on set, and in how we supported the cast and crew emotionally.

We held space before rehearsals. We checked in after takes. And when it got too real (which it did), we paused. Not for performance — for people.

🌿 Designing Diana’s World: From Vanity to Violence

A huge part of making Chrysalis was world-building through contrast:

• Soft vs. Sharp The delicate vanity, the flowing gowns, the glowing candlelight… all of it was crafted to lull you into a sense of comfort before Diana’s reality shattered through.

• Symbolism Everything Diana wears, touches, or breaks is deliberate. Mirrors are cracked. Blood falls on beauty.

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👯‍♀️ Casting: The Power of Two Women

The dynamic between Diana and Lilly was essential to ground the film. Without that bond, the weight of Diana’s trauma could easily swallow the story whole.

• Diana had to be played with restraint, grief, and explosive rage — often in the same scene.

• Lilly had to balance levity with loyalty, someone who can make you laugh while carrying the trauma of someone else’s story on her back.

Watching those two actresses perform — especially in the final parlor scene — reminded me why this film needed to exist. Because sometimes, healing doesn’t look like therapy. It looks like friendship. Like belief. Like someone staying, even after seeing your darkest moment.

🔥 Filming the Hardest Scene

The bedroom scene between Diana and her father was a hard moment to direct. We created a closed set with minimal crew.

Even still, the air was heavy.

There was no room for sensationalism. This was about power. About how predators weaponize grief and memory. And how survival, when it finally arrives, looks nothing like justice — only release.

We didn’t reshoot that scene. We didn’t need to.

🎭 A New Kind of Heroine

Diana doesn’t get a fairytale ending — because that’s not the world she lives in. But she does get something she’s never had before: control.

She stops running. She stops pleasing. She stops pretending.

And in doing so, she becomes something else entirely.

🎞 How This Film Connects to the Others

If you’ve seen BOA or LIKE WOE, you’ll recognize the echoes.

• Diana could easily be the woman who raised Boa. A woman who had to do something unimaginable to survive — and never fully healed.

• The butterfly symbolism in LIKE WOE traces back to the violence and “clans” introduced in this story. A lineage of women marked, watched, and hunted.

Chrysalis doesn’t just exist in a world — it shapes the world. It’s the original wound. The seed. The beginning of all rebellion in this cinematic universe.

💬 Final Thoughts

Chrysalis was more than a script. It was a conversation I was terrified to have — with myself, with the audience, and with the past.

It hurt to write. It hurt to shoot. But it would’ve hurt more not to tell it.

If this film reaches even one person who needed to see someone fight back, needed to see someone choose themselves, needed to see that they’re not alone — then every second of it was worth it.

Thank you to everyone who gave their trust, talent, and truth to this project.

This isn’t just a film. It’s a reminder.

No matter how deep the silence runs —you can still break it.

Want to support Chrysalis and future films like it? Follow @MickiRoseStudio.