The Rookie Behind James Franco's New Movie

Pamela Romanowsky met actor James Franco in the MFA film program at New York University, where they collaborated on a short film. “We both loved working together and so he offered to help me make my first feature,” she said.

Several years later, that feature is debuting at The Tribeca Film Festival, which starts on Wednesday.

Romanowsky, 32, wrote and directed “The Adderall Diaries,” based on the book by Stephen Elliott and featuring Franco, Ed Harris, Amber Heard and Cynthia Nixon.

Franco plays a writer struggling to get along with his father (Harris), to finish a new memoir, and to make sense of a childhood marked by the loss of his mother, drug use and physical abuse.

But really, Romanowsky said, the movie is about memory. “Memory is so interesting to me, because we know it's really foundational to who we are,” she said. “The things that happened to us and the way we tell those stories say so much about how we see ourselves and our place in the world.”

Pamela Romanowsky wrote and directed “The Adderall Diaries.”

(Joey Kuhn)

Romanowsky is particularly interested in human behavior. She grew up in St. Cloud Minn., in a science-inclined family. Her father is a neurologist, her mother was a pediatric nurse for many years and her brother is a physicist. Romanowsky herself was a psychology major in college and was pre-med, but then decided to come to New York City to make movies. That's when she met Franco.

Romanowsky worked on “The Adderall Diaries” for three years, and she said it was a very intense experience — especially the shooting of scenes like the one where Heard and Franco attempt an S&M encounter and it goes wrong. “Although that scene is fiction, there is a lot from my life that I drew on,” she said. “That said, it was also my favorite scene.”

The filmmaker wouldn't disclose how much the movie cost, but she said that most actors, producers and staff worked for very little. She said she is proud of both the film and of being a young, female director. “There are so few female directors in the generations before me to look up to," she said. "The movie industry, like many industries, exists in a very sexist culture.” 

Romanowsky is one of just four first-time directors at Tribeca. This year, the festival is presenting 101 features and 60 shorts.

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