Howl
Director: Sara Crow
United States, 2025, 17 min
Shooting Format:Alexa 35
Festival Year:2026
Category:Narrative Short
Genres:Drama, Coming of Age
Cast:Zoe Ziegler, Alex Moffat
Crew:Writer: Sara Crow. Producers: Nina Cochran, Adam Kinyon, Anton Vicente Kliot.
Email:saracrowfilm@gmail.com
Synopsis
Misfit Molly lives in a tent in her suburban backyard—but when she spots a wolf and no one believes her, she becomes obsessed with proving it's real.
About the director
Sara Crow makes films about misfits, subcultures, and those on the fringes of society. Her narrative feature Satoshi brought her an Academy Nicholl Fellowship, Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Lab Fellowships, and was further recognized with the NYU Sloan Feature Film Prize, SFFilm Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowship, and the WScripted Cannes Screenplay List. She earned her MFA from NYU’s Graduate Film program as a Martin Scorsese Scholar. At NYU, she received the Black Family Film Prize, and the AnnaRose King and Chris Columbus Production Awards.
As a documentarian, Sara has produced and directed award-winning work for many outlets including the New York City Ballet, HBO, Disney+, and Showtime. She produced the feature documentary Public Access, alongside Executive Producers Benny Safdie and Steve Buscemi. Public Access had its World Premiere in the U.S. Documentary Competition in the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
Her background in journalistic documentaries bleeds into her narrative work; Sara loves world-building and diving into secret and little known histories.
Filmmaker's note
What does grief look like when you're too young to name it?
12 year old Molly is living in a tent in her backyard because loss has made the inside of her house unbearable. Her own backyard becomes a liminal space: both close enough to home and far enough away to feel safe. When Molly encounters a wolf in the yard, it reflects what she’s experiencing internally: something untamed has entered her life, but no one around her can see it.
I make films about misfits and outsiders. We meet Molly after her world has been rearranged in illogical ways, rendering her "different" from her peers, and she's working hard to make it make sense. At the center of her disrupted universe is her dad Connor, a newly single parent trying to do best by his unconventional kid. It is a story about belief as a form of care, and about how mystery can coexist with healing.