Becoming a parent comes with a lot of complex questions. And depending on your answer you could be labeled a Black Sheep for life. On this episode of Black Sheep Network, I sat down with Kristina Miller Weston to talk about Just Wait, an upcoming feature film centered on one of the most emotionally charged and least honestly discussed questions women face: what if motherhood is not the life you actually want? The film follows a woman whose miscarriage forces her to confront an instinctive feeling of relief, sending her into a collision course with identity, marriage, expectation, and the pressure women feel to perform certainty around decisions that are often anything but simple. We talked about why stories like this still make studios uncomfortable, how female-centered films continue to face resistance in funding rooms, and why Kristina stopped waiting for permission to create the work she believed needed to exist. The current state of independent filmmaking, the collapse of the traditional studio pipeline, and what it now takes to get unconventional stories financed in an industry increasingly driven by familiarity and formulas needs to take a larger number of platforms and is a necessity to be voiced out. Here’s some of what we unpacked: The emotional premise behind Just Wait The funding challenges behind female-led films What the Black List feedback revealed about industry bias Why independent filmmakers are building outside the old system Kristina’s “little girl in the back row” philosophy This conversation ended up being just as much about conviction as it was about filmmaking. About what happens when you keep pushing forward with a story long after people tell you they “don’t know how to market it.” About creating work for the people who need to feel seen by it, not just the executives deciding whether it fits neatly into a category. Around how women’s experiences are still filtered through audiences and decision-makers who often struggle to recognize emotional complexity unless it arrives packaged in a way they already understand. If you’ve ever tried to build something that didn’t fit the usual mold, this will hit home. Listen for a conversation on storytelling, creative conviction, and what it takes to keep moving. ABOUT THE GUEST Kristina Miller Weston is a Los Angeles-based producer, actor, and founder of Kool Bnz Productions, a company dedicated to telling the stories the industry deems too risky, because she believes no risk outweighs giving hope. She performed on stages worldwide alongside Sally Struthers, Valerie Harper, and Dick Van Dyke, with screen credits including This Is Us and The L Word: Generation Q. Her award-winning shorts include To Say Goodbye Is to Die a Little, which earned 19 festival selections and 11 awards. She also produced and performed her own one-woman show and co-created the Broadway podcast My Favorite Flop. Her current focus is getting the feature film "Just Wait" made, with Diane Guerrero already attached to star. Find her at koolbnzproductions.com or on Instagram @koolbnz. [00:03:00] How Kristina went from actor to producer: her husband said "you can do that" and she listened [00:05:00] Why she focuses on championing female writers and what Cool Beans Productions stands for [00:06:00] On staying sane in an industry that keeps changing by creating instead of waiting [00:08:00] Choosing a life lived fully over one lived safely [00:09:00] The resistance she has faced as a female producer and the bias baked into the system [00:12:00] The premise of "Just Wait": a woman, a miscarriage, an honest reaction, and a retreat full of women all asking different versions of the same question [00:15:00] Why this is the movie Kristina wishes she had had when she became a mother [00:17:00] On trusting your gut when society has spent years training women not to [00:22:00] How independent films actually get made today (it is not what you think) [00:24:00] The "moving train" theory of filmmaking: if you are not a yes, you are not her person [00:25:00] The Black List submission, the male juror, and the audacity of critiquing real women's voices [00:27:00] Why female stories are not niche, they are the audience, and the data to prove it [00:29:00] Why this film is not just for women, and what it might open up for men too #BlackSheepNetwork #WomenInFilm #IndependentFilm #JustWaitFilm #KoolBnzProductions #KristinaMillerWeston #DianeGuerrero #FemaleProducers #TrustYourGut #StorytellingMatters #WomensStories #FilmProduction #FemaleStories #RepresentationMatters #IndieFilmmaker #WomenWhoCreate #AleashaBahr #BlackSheep #DoItAnyway #PodcastForWomen #BlackSheepPodcast #ArtThatMatters #FeatureFilm #WomensRights #BodyAutonomy #HollywoodDisruptor #PurposeDrivenFilm
