Lost Soulz

Katherine Propper, director of Lost Soulz

Through intuition and independence, film director Katherine Propper followed her path to the Tribeca Film Festival where her debut feature film Lost Soulz earned a 2023 Tribeca Festival Audience Award.

Ignoring the traditional route into the entertainment industry through her hometown of Los Angeles, Propper was pulled to the state of Texas to pursue filmmaking.

“It being Texas and being known as a state that has a lot of pride in its independent spirit, it feels more like a place where you can grow into yourself and make your own destiny,” Propper said.

From a young age, Propper was comfortable being on her own and she expressed a deep curiosity about the people around her. At the age of six she would often knock on random neighbor’s doors to see if the house had any kids inside who wanted to come out and play with her.

“I really cherish the kind of freedom I grew up with,” Propper said. “It allowed me to explore different parts of LA, meet people from different walks of life and get to know different people through exploration. I think that’s something that I take with me into my filmmaking too.”

Propper primed herself to pursue a practical and financially stable career, but half way through college at Georgetown University she began experiencing a lot of dissatisfaction when considering the traditional business career routes.

She listened to what her body was starting to tell her and decided to intern at a few creative companies back in LA. Propper got a feel for the gargantuan nature of the entertainment industry along with the different roles it requires to keep its engines turning and which of those roles she may want to pursue.

She had the opportunity to intern at Universal Music Group during the rise of music streaming, which brought her a unique opportunity to see the undetermined projection of the music industry. Her time at Di Novi Pictures — founded by Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants producer Denise Di Novi — sparked her already heightened curiosities about film.

When she returned to Georgetown, Propper decided to enroll in a screenwriting class. She started to feed her confidence that she could pursue a career in this creative space by becoming more familiar with the accomplishments of other “Katherines” who made a name for themselves in film.

Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Twilight and Kathryn Bigelow who won the Oscar for Directing with The Hurt Locker are a few women in the film industry she started to pay attention to. She continued to be emotionally moved by some of her favorite films such as Blue Valentine, directed by Derek Cianfrance, and inspired by directors journey’s such as M. Night Shyamalan. But what really proved to be a turning point for her was when she heard a faculty member speak about their experience of pursuing a career path that didn’t fulfill their soul.

photogrpahy by Callie Keels Ju & Bita Ghassemi

Propper recalls the man explaining his life path and by his mid thirties he was a partner at a big law firm, he made a lot of money and he had a lovely family, but when he looked in the mirror he didn’t recognize himself. He told the room full of young minds how he had this overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction and a lack of peace in his soul.

“I remember feeling I didn’t want to be like that come 36,” Propper said. “Like I didn’t recognize myself and didn’t even like what I was doing.”

Her voice began to crack and a few hasty inhales overcame her as she looked down into her lap.

“It was a really spiritual experience for me to decide to not do something practical for a career,” she said. “It requires a lot of faith to feel like you’re actually living your purpose.”

After that, she started paying more attention to her intuition and moments of synchronicity. When she kept going in the direction she was being pulled, things just started aligning for her.

One of Propper’s favorite films is the aforementioned Blue Valentine — a hard and gritty independent film starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. The film would serve as an exit ramp for Gosling to leave the image of “The Guy From The Notebook” behind and open the door to more fulfilling roles and the stardom he possesses today. All thanks to this romantic drama that was written and directed by a relatively unknown independent filmmaker named Derek Cianfrance.

While still in school at Georgetown and just having dipped her toes into the ‘I’m considering film school’ pool, Propper found herself on a trip to New York where she attended a play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. While in the concessions line during intermission, Propper realized standing in line in front of her was Derek Cianfrance, the director of Blue Valentine.

Propper was a bit taken aback at the opportunity to meet the person who had such an influence on steering her onto the path she presently on. An influence that was generated by a distant figure, until now. She had a brief conversation with Cianfrance where she expressed her appreciation for the film and told him she was considering becoming a director herself. He was kind and engaging in his response, and Propper was grateful for this memory.

Fast forward six months while she was studying abroad in Florence, Italy, she had a quick stop in London, where she attended another play with her uncle and his wife. Propper didn’t get to sit with them at the play because two of the tickets were seated together and the other was a solo ticket. Propper took her solo ticket and went to find her seat. After navigating the aisles and shuffling past laps, she sat down. And who is seated next to her but once again, Derek Cianfrance.

“We both thought it was really strange,” Propper said. “He gave me certain words of advice and wisdom that felt like synchronicity at the time and sort of like, ‘oh, maybe this is what I’m supposed to be doing.’”

As Propper strengthened her mindset of paying attention in the present moment and being open to whatever came across her path, it all started to fall into place.

She enrolled in film school at the University of Texas and she started making films immediately.

She met Sauve Sidle, the main character in Lost Soulz, through a Craigslist ad she posted. She was looking for actors for a school project and later cast Sauve in her short film Street Flame.

“The description of the project really resonated with what I was living at the time so I felt like it was just the perfect timing,” Sauve said.

Propper and Sauve clicked right away and the mutual respect formed as they started to collaborate together.

“He told me he was going to be a rapper and I believed him,” Propper said. “The part of me that saw myself in Sauve, is the part in me that also believed in Sauve. I appreciated his bold candidness and it felt like, like recognizes like”

Lost Soulz is about an aspiring young rapper and musician who leaves everything he knows behind to tour with a group of musicians he met. While traveling across the state of Texas in a van with his new crew, rapper Sol finds creative partnership in music, new friendships and himself.

Lost Soulz was written based on Sauve and parts of his life in Texas. Propper enjoyed casting younger generations as the main characters in her film because of the enthusiasm they brought to the creative process.

“I appreciated them coming to the craft with an open mind, wanting to learn it with me,” Propper said. “I was able to kind of make films in a more unconventional way because of that.”

The younger generation embodied the same energy as Texas for her — the free Americana and independent spirit. Propper has been inspired by Texas filmmakers who have embodied the indie spirit and process such as Robert Rodriguez, director of Spy Kids, and Richard Linklater, director and writer of Dazed & Confused and Slacker.

Freedom continued to remain an important value to Propper since she was a little girl.

Lost Soulz captures the spontaneity, insecurity, instability and freedom of youth. The film leaves you excited and scared for its characters and what is to come of them.

For Propper, what impacted her most outside of getting to make her film was how everyone else who was a part of it was just as excited and passionate about what they were creating with her.

“The process of working with Katherine is very collaborative,” Sauve said. “She makes it easy especially because she allows us to be ourselves, which makes it comfortable for us to be on camera.”

After Lost Soulz became a 2023 Tribeca Festival Audience Award winner, the film was acquired by Kino Lorber and hit theaters in May 2024.

“So many of the people who actually participated in the film really loved it and were so excited about it,” Propper said. “That is what satisfied me more than winning an audience award.”

Since Lost Soulz, Propper was approached by a few producers and is currently helping to write a script for her next project, which will be more of a collaboration.

“I’d love to continue making work that allows me to travel all over the world,” said Propper. “I like learning about people. I get excited about getting to know others and learn from them.”