The last year has been a big one for film director Maya Weldon-Lagrimas: she graduated from Yale University, released her first film, and began to traverse adulthood amid growing political and economic turmoil. For many like her, these struggles are reminiscent of another tense time in American history, when changing political tides and a looming recession had many on edge: the year 2008.

Inspired by her childhood view of the world during the mid-2000s, Weldon-Lagrimas's new short film 2008 tells the story of a young girl navigating adolescence in San Francisco in the months leading up to the historic Prop 8 vote.

"It was just the most interesting story I could possibly tell," Weldon-Lagrimas told the SGN.

At that time, Californians were preparing to vote on an initiative that would ban Gay marriage in the state by amending the constitution. This was an especially fraught time for Weldon-Lagrimas's family, as she was growing up with two moms.

"As a kid, there were a lot of things going on that I was trying to make sense of that weren't following the narrative I had seen on TV," she recalled.

2008 centers on Weldon-Lagrimas’s perspective navigating her youth in a Queer household and beginning to realize and understand how her family differed from her peers’. The short film draws on her real experiences, such as the day she and her mothers took her out to dinner to explain the story of her conception.

"One of the scenes in the film is about when my two moms sat me down at a Chinese restaurant and told me about artificial insemination when I was, like, six years old," Weldon-Lagrimas said. "It was such a core memory for me, and I had this existential crisis thinking about all of the sperm running to the egg and all of them dying except for the one that made me."

That memory became a jumping-off point for Weldon-Lagrimas as she neared her final year at Yale and began crafting the script for a film project. Reflecting on her unique childhood, she realized the perfect story existed in her tangled-up memories.

One element that sets 2008 apart from other debut films is the level of talent Weldon-Lagrimas acquired. Not only did she find the perfect lead in 15-year-old, up-and-coming Eurasian actress Anja Kao Nielsen but she also managed to cast Michaela Jill Murphy, who initially caught her eye in the early 2000s for her portrayal of Toph in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Weldon-Lagrimas described casting Murphy as a "Hail Mary" after she sent a direct message to the actress on TikTok to see if she was interested in participating in her film.

"Growing up, she was one of my favorite characters of all time, hands down," Weldon-Lagrimas said. "She was one of the sweetest, most down-to-earth people ever. Working with her was super easy."

Murphy recorded her voiceover at a small studio in Los Angeles while Weldon-Lagrimas directed over Zoom. When it came time to screen the film at Yale, she flew down to attend and meet the director in person.

Since the film's premiere on April 4 at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY), it's created quite a buzz. Weldon-Lagrimas recently took 2008 on a festival tour, where it was included in NFFTY and awarded the Best Experience Points Audience Choice Award.

2008 is a fresh take on a Queer story. Encompassing the perspective of a child coming of age alongside the fight for Gay marriage, the film is a beautiful yet honest depiction of the complexities that come with any family.