Make More Movies: Tess Nealon Raskin (Ep. 7)

“Nobody can tell you how to make your movie, and you’re the only one who can make it happen at the end of the day. So, stop waiting around for other people to give you permission because they never will.” These were the parting words filmmaker Tess Nealon Raskin left me with during our conversation some weeks ago, and she seems to be practicing what she’s preached. Having released two short films last year and having already directed at least one more in 2026, Raskin is wasting no time waiting for someone to greenlight her post-collegiate filmmaking career. Her films confront a number of taboo topics (the sexualization of young women, traumatic brain injuries, eating disorders) in ways that feel at once uncomfortable and relatable. The stripped-back camcorder aesthetic is what truly makes Raskin’s shorts feel grounded and lived-in, as if Giuseppe Andrews had guest-directed a few episodes of Degrassi. Earlier this year, Split Tooth’s Brooks Wieszczek covered the micro-budget DIY films of Roy Gentes. Raskin has been a vital part of Gentes’ extensive filmography, consisting of 25 short films and one mid-length feature all released in the past six years. The two met in college, around the time Raskin released her first short film Bummer (2024) to less-than-enthusiastic feedback from her classmates. “I think it completely killed any people-pleasing instinct I might have had toward that community,” Raskin said of the experience. That disappointment paired with the creative synergy she felt she had with Gentes led to their collaborative directorial effort Girls with Boyfriends (2025), a film that abandons nearly all common filmmaking conventions in favor of an “anti-film school” method of storytelling. Raskin builds upon these themes with Sicky (2025), a film that abandons the locked-down, mostly single location practices of Girls with Boyfriends for a more frantic and ambitious tale of a young woman who severs ties with her best friend after a car accident leaves her with a traumatic brain injury. This injury impacts her personality, her relationships, and her rotisserie chicken diet. The reception to the film has been more polarizing than that of Girls with Boyfriends, but Raskin hardly takes audience perception into account anymore. Sure, she still religiously checks Letterboxd reviews (as I’d imagine we all do), but the young filmmaker is no longer willing to let those critiques stifle her creative voice. “When I’m in the mood to make something, I don’t want to delay when that can happen. I wanna just go do it. It actually stresses me out and devastates me to think about waiting around for other people to approve the ‘right’ version of the thing that I wanna make.” Listen to the newest episode of Make More Movies here and head to Split Tooth Media to read the full interview. Split Tooth's Summer 2026 Double Issue is also now available, featuring interviews with filmmakers Joe Swanberg and Tess Nealon Raskin, our Guide to Mumblecore, plus Girl Trouble's Bon Von Wheelie! Order at our Ko-fi store: https://ko-fi.com/s/5df933982d