By Chris Woodard
When Courtney Banzon moved to Sacramento in August 2023, fresh out of UC Davis and searching for work, she didn’t expect the city’s creative community to change her life. She wanted to meet people and get involved, so when she spotted an advertisement for A Place Called Sacramento, she decided to attend the October film festival.
Curiosity got her in the door, but the inspiration gained that night brought her back.
“I was so inspired by the idea of the film festival,” she says. “It’s really helpful at facilitating beginning filmmakers and getting them connected with the community and really talented people.”
What she did not know was that less than two years later, her own film would debut at that same festival — and sweep it. Her short film, “Dandelion Daydreams,” earned multiple awards, including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and two honors she cherished even more: Best Director and Audience Favorite at the festival on Oct. 11 at the Crest Theater. Winning Best Director as a first-time filmmaker stunned her.
“It was surprising, but also just like, ‘Wow, it really did happen,’” she says. And the Audience Favorite award meant even more to her: “[The] audience award is one I’ve been thinking about for a while.”
Banzon’s journey to that breakout moment began when she submitted a script during the festival’s winter submission window back in 2023. The first script did not get selected by Access Sacramento, the nonprofit that runs the festival, but she refused to see that as a setback. She joined another filmmaker’s project as a camera operator, which helped her prepare for her own film.
“I would have struggled a lot more this year,” she says. “I wouldn’t have known as much about what’s required of pre-production and what it’s like to be in charge of a set.”
When submissions opened again the next winter, she submitted a script that felt more personal, and in late April, she received the call telling her she made the top 10 out of hundreds of entries. The festival’s process moved fast: a cast-and-crew call in early May, pre-production in June, filming in July, editing in August then turning in the finished cut in early September. As a first-time director, she relied heavily on the festival’s collaborative nature.
“I don’t have any camera skills,” she says. “So to get the community together and bring all those skills into one team, it’s really helpful that they facilitate that from the very beginning.”
Her film, “Dandelion Daydreams,” explores a mother-daughter relationship strained by dementia. The short film is rooted in the baking of a family recipe that is meant to be passed down from mother to daughter. She carried over the idea of this meaningful bread recipe from an earlier script and expanded its symbolism as she wrote.
“The whole story is bittersweet,” she says, describing how she used honey and dark chocolate to represent emotional contrast.
The dandelion motif came later as she looked for a concrete symbol of fleeting moments. “The dandelion was just perfect. Because it’s this beautiful thing that you only get to enjoy for a second.”
Finding actual dandelions in July turned into one of the production’s pesky yet charming challenges.
“I spent hours of my life looking for dandelions,” she says. She searched parks at dawn and business lawns at night, terrified that none would remain in bloom. Her cast joined the hunt between takes, gathering flowers and storing them in a Tupperware container she called “the most precious thing on the set.”
To integrate Sacramento into the story, she wrote a farmers market sequence which was ultimately filmed at the Meadowview market after finding a honey vendor with the right aesthetic Banzon wanted to showcase a bit of Sacramento. Her actors delivered performances strong enough to earn festival awards, and Banzon strengthened their chemistry by encouraging them to spend time together before filming.
Even the first photo, actors Rona Bernadette Arrogancia and Gaby Dubon staged together, an image meant to capture years of mother-daughter closeness, came out naturally. “They weren’t even very familiar with each other yet,” she says, laughing. “But the first photo they took together was the one we used in the movie.”
Now, Banzon is submitting to festivals across the West Coast. Banzon often reflects on how Sacramento shaped her career. She jokes that part of her still feels “kind of stupid” for choosing to pursue film in Sacramento over Los Angeles — where she grew up and where her family lives — but she also knows she made the right choice.
“I want to do something more like this,” she says, “where I’m creating my own films and getting more recognition because I’m not fighting with the thousands of people rushing to L.A.”