First-year film majors, Shantianna Quispel and Roberta Kuliesiute are in production of creating their film “The Vanishing” set to come out this summer.

Quispel, an international student from the Netherlands is the director, and Kuliesiute a student originally from Chicago is the producer, co-writer, and second assistant director of the short film. 

“The Vanishing” is a ‘90s-style cult thriller set in the eyes of a 19-year-old boy named Tristan, who unexpectedly reconnects with his ex-girlfriend Clara. She invites him into what she calls a “loving family”, but something feels off when he visits her in a beautiful mansion. Suspicious, he returns with his punk-rocker brother Johnny to uncover the truth. 

Quispel came up with the idea through a previous documentary she took part in that showcased how cults are portrayed. Here she was able to interview people in cults and find those who are against cults or have escaped from cults. She found the subject so interesting she wanted to make a movie out of it. 

Kuliesiute got into Quispel’s project, read the script, and liked it, however, had suggestions for improvement.

Quispel was open to rewriting so they completely rewrote the script together in 12 hours and sent it directly to their Director of Photography Christy Knudson who agreed and was a part of the project. 

Quispel as a director focused primarily on the performance and the visual storytelling. 

“I do try to stay positive and be like a cheerleader for the team because you want to make your passion come to life and treat all these people that are working with you to make this come true,” Quispel said. 

Kuliesiute as a producer and co-writer, did above all the pre-production work like finding the crew and managing the locations, equipment and all agreements. As a second assistant director she is also a part of the creative process. 

Creating the film and shooting it took them five and a half months. 

“We worked so hard and long on pre-production and then when we are finally in production it’s so nice to see everything coming to life,” Quispel said.

Quispel and Kuliesiute both found their love for film early on. 

“Making films was always a big thing on my bucket list,” Quispel said.“ I didn’t want a regular nine-to-five job and I feel like in film it’s always a different adventure and a different story,”

Before coming to City College both had made a documentary and deepened their passion for creating films.

“I am here to make films and this is the perfect time to write with a lot of passionate people,” Quispel said. “I didn’t want to wait for the right moment, because my time is now,”

As for Kuliesiute it all started with watching lots of TV and at the age of 16 it turned into movies in the cinema.  

“Every time I watched a good movie in the cinema the first thing I thought was ‘I can’t wait until it’s my film on the screen,’” Kuliesiute said. 

She took a side route of getting to her goal of studying film because she was scared regarding financial reasons. Now she is at City College and is very grateful for where she’s at.

“I am happier than ever and I thought that’s ​the best decision I ever made in my life,” Kuliesiute said. 

Currently, “The Vanishing” is going through the editing process, post-sound production and coloring. After that, they will try to figure out a theater to release and submit it to film festivals. 

They predict “The Vanishing” will come out this summer 2025 and they plan to have a festival run and lots of school runs so for a little while it will be accessible to the public. Entering it into the Santa Barbara Film Festival is also a goal of the two girls. 

“There’s not enough words to describe how thankful we are for everybody’s help for this project and we really hope that it will inspire future people,” Kuliesiute said. “We are really excited to show it to you guys and look out for our next project because there’s definitely more coming soon,”