One of my favorite parts of film festivals is that the line-ups often include some smaller productions that gain a bigger platform via well-known and experienced creators eager to bring more awareness to a particular story or topic. That’s the case with the documentary Split at the Root which has Once Upon a Time star Lana Parrilla as an executive producer and prolific writer-producer Marti Noxon as a producer.
Directed by Linda Goldstein Knowlton, Split at the Root puts the focus on mothers seeking asylum who are then separated from their children due to the Zero Tolerance Policy. Help comes in the form of a group of women throughout the US who team up to form Immigrant Families Together, a rapid response organization committed to reuniting these parents with their children.
With Split at the Root celebrating its world premiere out of SXSW, Parrilla and Noxon took the time to discuss how they got involved in the project and what it took to see the film through to fruition. Noxon highlighted how a longer-than-expected production process wound up strengthening the film while also bringing added awareness to the fact that these struggles don’t end when the story is no longer making news headlines.
“We started this in 2018. We really didn’t think that we’d be completing it now. But, it’s also been so helpful to have people like Lana and Rosario and all these incredible people who’ve supported us because like a lot of documentaries, we’ve sort of been scraping by. And an interesting thing for me is that with other things I’ve been involved with in terms of organizations that are helpers, when the media focus goes away from that, when it’s not the top story on the news, it’s sometimes really hard to remind people that this is a situation that is ongoing and could very well happen again, and could very well happen again with the same kind of cruelty. So I think one of the reasons why we’re sort of grateful that the movie took longer is that you really are able to follow these women’s stories.”
How exactly did Parrilla come to decide she had to join the film's list of executive producers alongside Rosario Dawson, Zak Kilberg, Amanda Marshall, Jason Beck, and Regina Solorzano? She explained:
“I remember learning about the Zero Tolerance Policy, I think it was entitled that in 2018, and we really, as a country, started seeing bits of it on the news in 2019, and I was just completely horrified. I am not a supporter of the Trump administration already to begin with so seeing that this was happening in our very own country was nauseating. I am a mother to so many. I don’t have children of my own, but I love children, I’ve raised children, and the fact that any government can tear children away from their families is just ungodly. And I felt like I had an opportunity to be of service jumping on board, being a part of this team, using my platform to raise awareness, sharing this documentary with our youth.”
Split at the Root marks Parrilla's very first producing credit, but she confirmed that there’s more to come, and also highlighted how other actor-producers are inspiring her to continue pursuing that path:
“I’ve actually been in development for the past four years on several projects. A couple of them haven’t quite taken off, but we have one right now that we’re keeping our fingers crossed for. And I have another one that I’m working on and I’ve been an executive producer on those, and also starring in one of them. Nowadays you can’t just be an actor. You have to be a director, you have to be a producer. Stepping out of Once Upon A Time, which was a total bubble up in Canada for seven years, I stepped back into the industry going, ‘Uh, what’s going on now?’ And I realized how expansive television has become and all these women whom I admire greatly, one of them is my dearest friend, Eva Longoria, Rosario Dawson, seeing what these women, Latin women are doing in the industry has always been an inspiration so yes, I’m very excited about my new producing career.”
Looking for more on Split at the Root and IFT from Parrilla and Noxon? Be sure to catch our full SXSW 2022 interview in the video at the top of this article.