Writer and Director of Honeyjoon Lilian T. Mehrel Shares the Film’s Journey From Pitch to Production to Premiere Date
Still from Honeyjoon. Written and Directed by Lilian T. Mehrel. Shot by Inés Gowland.
It’s every filmmaker’s dream to have the resources available to actualize their vision, but what’s most important is to craft a story that speaks to a variety of audiences. Writer and director Lilian T. Mehrel was already confident in her heartfelt mother-daughter dramedy Honeyjoon, so it was even more exciting when she won the 2024 AT&T Untold Stories award, securing her film funding and the opportunity to premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. The film follows Persian-Kurdish mother Lela and her American daughter June as they travel to an Azorean island to honor their late husband and father.
Through exploring the vast island with the guidance of a handsome and thoughtful tour guide, João, the two find a connection even through their diverging approaches to grief. The film conflates the navigation of grief with the reclamation of female pleasure and learning how to enjoy life after a tragic loss, making it a deeply universal and resonant narrative. Honeymoon received tons of praise upon its premiere and was the third runner-up for the Audience Narrative Award for the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival.
Q. Honeyjoon was the winning film of AT&T’s Untold Stories program, securing a premiere date at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. Talk about what this accomplishment meant to you.
A. When we won, we won on June 7 of last year. I did the pitch and I won the financing for my film, and also the chance to premiere at Tribeca, but we had to get selected when I finished the film. We did get selected in competition for the Viewpoints section, and then we premiered one year to the date, since the pitch, June 7 to June 7, which was amazing. It just goes to show you. I had the script, I was ready to go, all I needed was the money. As soon as the financing came in, we made the movie. It’s that simple. So it’s kind of crazy.
When you think about it, it’s like a race horse, just like, waiting to run, and then they remove the thing, and you’re off. That’s all it took. But of course, that money [translated] into hiring cast and crew and bringing together this amazing team that it took to make this film. I’m very, very happy to say it was a beautiful, creative collaboration across the board.
Q. The film’s cinematography is gorgeous and captures the beautiful landscape of the Azores. How did you and Inés Gowland work together to deliver the striking images seen in the film?
A. You know, that makes me think that, like audiences today, they really appreciate a fresh, visionary voice in cinema. They want an artist, they want an independent filmmaker who’s going to show them the world in a unique way. I think that even people who aren’t in film love that and get excited by that. People make TikToks in the style of Wes Anderson because people love to see someone being so themselves and using their voice, and they appreciate that. I also make things that make people laugh. People don’t always think that comedy and drama can also be beautiful and cinematic. I think it can, because when you look at a cinematic, poetic image, it’s communicating more to you than meets the eye. It’s visual storytelling, and I’m using every tool that I have to communicate layers of emotion to you, and to speak the language of emotions, which is what directing is to me and what filmmaking is.
My cinematographer and I both went to NYU Tisch [Graduate Film]. She’s an unbelievable artist and cinematographer who helped me bring to life this story in a way that feels like a celebration of life, which is also what the film is about. It captures the beautiful nature, it captures the women’s bodies like landscapes. It captures the light, and the parts of the film that feel like a memory. We shot on real film. We also shot on iPhone for that feeling of when you’re on a trip and you grab your phone and you’re just like, grabbing glimpses of things. I think that’s why a lot of people have said to me, like, it feels so real and feels so natural, because it was. We were using an iPhone for those moments. It was an incredible collaboration. We started with mood boards [and we talked] about films that [were] inspiring us. Funny enough, we were watching the film Call Me by Your Name all Summer for like a cinematography reference. But then it turns out, when I was casting, the mom from Call Me by Your Name is the mom in Honeyjoon, Amira Casar. Then, we have Ayden Mayeri as June, and José Condessa as João, and an amazing cast.
Ayden Mayeri, Amira Casar, and José Condessa in Honeyjoon.
Q. This film is female-centric and focuses on reclaiming female pleasure. How did you explore the female gaze in this film?
A. You know it really does reclaim female pleasure, and it is through literally the female gaze of you know my eyes and my cinematographer’s lens. But even though the two leads of the mother and the daughter, are women, there are men in the film.
I find that if people think that it’s a mother-daughter story only or female-centric, they’re actually missing the humanness underneath and how it’s really about the things that we all feel. Everybody, regardless of being a mother or daughter or a woman, feels pain, loss, pleasure, joy, desire, all the things that are in my film. So I think what I bring to it is my human lens, my human gaze above all.
Q. The mother-daughter relationship drives the film forward. How did you approach Lela and June’s differing grieving processes when writing and directing?
A. When I thought about their different approaches to grieving, these two characters, I thought about the symbol of the Yin Yang and how there’s dark and light with like a little hint of each on either side. Lela represents the dark side. You know, she’s trying to connect through their pain. She’s seeing the world through her loss right now, everything is tying back to the memory of her husband and a story about him and pain and sadness and her country, and that’s where she is.
June is trying to run towards the light. [She’s trying to] feel alive again, seeking pleasure, despite having no privacy in the hotel room with her mom, flirting, despite it not working out, just trying so hard. Ultimately, to make the full picture and to be alive means feeling both, and so each character, they cross over into each other’s side, and they find that balance.
Q. This film honors your late father and is all about finding joy in life after loss. Talk about how essential it was to imbue this film with your personal experience.
A. I’ve realized that the more emotionally honest I can be, the more I connect with people. It doesn’t always mean that it exactly mirrors my life experience, but at least the emotional truth of my life experience. So, for example, my personal story isn’t exactly the same as this fictional one, but the feelings of memory, of honoring a loved one, and how do you enjoy life again? [You want] to live for them too, you know?
All of those questions are real, and they found their way into my film. I think maybe that’s why people, even with different kinds of losses or different experiences of their own, can connect to that part of it, because it’s universal. But I think ultimately, what’s underneath all of that is love, and that, I hope, can be felt by people as well.