Al on the set of a short film for the Chicago History Museum
KNOW YOUR LIGHTS, written by Al Benoit, was the Grand Prize Winner of our Fall 2025 Short Film Fund. The story is set in a Mexican-American neighborhood in Chicago, where a young girl investigates mysterious “lights”, only to uncover a far more dangerous reality threatening her community.
Tell us about your short. What is it about, and what inspired you to write it?
Know Your Lights is set in Chicago’s Little Village and told through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl named Gianna. She’s observant, imaginative, and always watching the world around her. When families in her apartment building begin to disappear, Gianna tries to make sense of what’s happening by collecting clues, drawing connections, and waiting for the strange lights that appear at night, hoping to catch a glimpse of what they really are. What begins as a child’s investigation slowly reveals a much more frightening reality unfolding in her community, as she comes to understand why families are disappearing.
Growing up just outside Chicago, I was always drawn to stories about curious kids trying to understand the adult world. I was a huge fan of Harriet the Spy, both the book and the movie. I memorized the lines, emulated her outfits, and scribbled notes in notebooks (something I still do). I loved the idea of a child using observation and imagination as tools. That sensibility came rushing back in a much heavier way over the past few months as my timelines filled with reports and videos of ICE raids across communities. It made me angry. It made me feel helpless. I kept thinking about how overwhelming and incomprehensible that kind of fear must be for a child, which brought me back to how imagination might become a way to process what feels impossible to understand directly.
Once I started thinking about the story through that lens, it came together quickly, which surprised me. But in hindsight, it makes sense. For years, I’d been circling these sorts of lyrical portraits of children alongside their parents, told through a child’s vantage point. I wrote a lot of scripts that carried that same DNA. They weren’t made, but each one mattered. Each attempt sharpened the theme and pushed me closer to the emotional core. Know Your Lights felt like the moment where those threads finally converged.
I also see this film as a love letter to Chicago and to the way the city has shaped how I see and listen over the years. The friendliness that isn’t showy. The working-class rhythm of people looking out for each other. The music of blocks that feel like family. I don’t want this to be a film about Chicago from the outside looking in. I want it to feel like it’s told from inside its walls. The neighborhoods, the sounds, the language, the pulse that never really left me.
What motivated you to enter the Short Film Fund?
Behind the scenes of the short film “We Were Monsters And Detectives”
I first entered the Short Film Fund in the spring of 2021. A producer friend I worked with at a post-production company told me about it and encouraged me to apply. She knew I was always writing scripts on the side and that narrative work was what I ultimately wanted to be doing. I did some research and liked what I saw, so I submitted one of the scripts I had been developing at the time.
I’ve continued entering the fund over the years, and it became something I genuinely looked forward to each time it came around. Every year, I submitted a different script. None of them moved forward, but it never felt like a reason to stop. I believed in the stories I was submitting, and more than anything, I wanted the chance to actually make one of them.
What kept drawing me back is that the fund doesn’t just recognize writing; it actively helps a film get made. Getting a short properly budgeted can feel daunting, especially when you’re trying to move a project from the page into the world. The support Shore Scripts provides felt like a meaningful step toward making that leap possible.
How did you feel when you found out that you won?
It was actually a pretty funny moment. I was in the middle of an edit session with clients when I saw the email notification pop up on my phone. I caught the words “I am thrilled to inform you,” and immediately knew what it meant, but I had to keep a straight face and keep working.
Once the session wrapped, I called my family, and they were all excited and proud. That was when it started to feel real.
Beyond the personal excitement, I felt a deep sense of relief and gratitude that it now had a real path forward. I believe Know Your Lights can be meaningful to people, and knowing it would actually get the chance to be told meant the world to me.
It also felt like a huge step in the right direction. A kind of confirmation that the work is connecting, and that the time and care you put into a script isn’t disappearing into a void. As a writer and filmmaker, that kind of reassurance can be rare.
Do you want to develop the script further? If so, what will you look to change?
Right now, my focus is on making the strongest possible version of the short, and a big part of that is collaboration. Films are shaped by the people you build them with, so I’m being very intentional about assembling a crew that can bring care and perspective to the world of the film. Since Know Your Lights centers on a Mexican-American community, it’s important to me that the people behind the camera have a real connection to that world, and that the set itself reflects the story being told.
Language has been a central part of the development process. I want the film to move naturally between Spanish and English, because that’s the world Gianna lives in. She goes to an English-speaking school, she writes her notes and observations in English, and that’s the language she uses as she navigates the outside world. At home, with her family and elders, Spanish becomes the dominant language. That fluidity feels essential to her experience. I’m currently working with my girlfriend, Paola Malo Esquivelzeta — who is a producer and actor — to translate the script into Spanish. Translation isn’t one-to-one, so the focus has been on preserving the rhythm, intent, and emotional clarity of each scene, rather than treating language as a literal swap.
I’ve also thought about what a feature version of Know Your Lights might look like, and I go back and forth on it. Some stories just work best as shorts, and there are moments where I feel this may be one of them. If it were to expand, I imagine a larger story set within the same world, widening the scope while staying rooted in Gianna’s point of view. It would allow the neighborhood itself to become a living, breathing character and give us more space to follow Gianna as she slowly comes to understand what the ICE raids are, what they mean for the people she loves, and what “fighting back” looks like for a kid her age.
What sparked your interest in storytelling?
My love for storytelling came from my Grandma. Every Sunday we had this standing routine: Lunch at a diner, feed the ducks at the pond with the bread she snuck into her purse, and then off to the movies.
We didn’t even pick films ahead of time. We just showed up and saw whatever was playing. So I was exposed to all kinds of stories: comedies, dramas, thrillers (and some stuff I definitely wasn’t old enough to see!).
But what really stuck with me happened after the movie. On the drive home, my Grandma would always ask, “So, if the story kept going, what would happen next?”
That was the deal: I had to come up with my own version of what happened after the credits rolled. And that simple question, asked over and over again, made me fall in love with the idea of continuing the story, or better yet, making my own.
As I got older, I became obsessed with horror movies. I’d go to this little mom-and-pop rental shop called Video Villa and purposely rent things that would completely ruin my sleep for the next few days. I was fascinated by how a story could scare you, stay with you, change how you feel in your own house.
That’s when it really clicked: I wanted to do that. I wanted to create something that could move people and live with them.
What have you learned throughout your career that has shaped your approach to storytelling?
When I was younger, like most people starting out, I didn’t really know what I was doing as a writer. That part never fully goes away. You’re always learning, always evolving. But even early on, I knew I wanted to tell stories through film, and I had one guiding instinct: make it personal. Make it exposing. If it didn’t feel a little like a diary on screen, I wasn’t interested. That was the only compass I had at the time.
What I didn’t understand yet was that storytelling isn’t just about what’s written on the page. I came to that realization through an unexpected avenue: shooting weddings. Stay with me here, haha.
During film school, I needed to make money, so I started filming and editing weddings. It doesn’t sound like it has much to do with narrative filmmaking, but it ended up teaching me a lot. I treated them like small documentaries. I didn’t stage moments or pose people. I spent time with the couples beforehand, got to know them, and then lived the day alongside them, camera in hand, capturing things as they happened.
That experience taught me something fundamental: you can’t force real moments. You have to be present enough to recognize them when they appear. You either catch the truth in real time or it’s gone. That instinct, of learning how to observe and how to frame life as it’s unfolding, became a huge part of how I approach filmmaking. And it reinforced something I still believe deeply: the best storytelling, whether narrative, documentary, or commercial, comes from truth. Everything else is just technique layered on top of that.
Do you think about the practicalities of filming when you write? If so, how has that changed your writing process, or have you always worked in that way?
Behind the scenes on the short film “Homesick”
I do think about the practicalities of filming when I write, but that’s something that’s evolved over time. I’ve edited most of the short films I’ve made, and I’ve also spent years working as an editor in the commercial space, which has shaped how I approach storytelling. I tend to write with both a director’s and an editor’s perspective in mind. As I’m writing, I’m constantly thinking about how scenes will cut together, what truly needs to be shown, what can be implied, and how each moment strengthens the story rather than weighing it down.
Working in advertising sharpened that instinct even further, especially when it comes to timing. When you’re cutting 30–60 second spots, you develop a very real sense of how long a moment actually needs to be before it’s done its job. That internal sense of pacing carries over into narrative work in a meaningful way, helping me think about rhythm and transitions.
That said, I remember writing one of my first features in high school that was over 200 pages, with endless locations and characters. A horror-satire inspired by The Divine Comedy, set in modern-day Hollywood, about someone trying to get their film made. I clearly wasn’t doing much editing or thinking at all about how something like that could ever be made haha.
A real shift came later when a writing professor gave advice that really stuck with me: write the stories you love, but also write stories you believe you can actually get made. He talked about setting parameters like fewer locations and achievable production realities. At first, that can sound like you’re limiting yourself creatively, but it doesn’t have to. It just forces you to be more intentional and focus more on character.
What do you feel will be your biggest challenge in terms of getting your script off paper and onto the screen?
Casting Gianna. The film really lives or dies with her. We’re looking for a young actor who can carry a lot of emotional weight with subtlety, curiosity, and who is also bilingual. Finding a child who can access that depth while still feeling natural isn’t easy. There are also the practical realities of working with a minor, including limited hours and creating an environment that feels safe and supportive.
It’s one thing to write a character like Gianna on the page, and another thing entirely to find the person who can bring her to life. That said, I don’t see this as a limitation or a concern in a negative sense. I believe that when we find the right actor, she’ll bring layers to the story that go beyond what’s written, and the film will be stronger for it.
What excites you the most about this project? What scares you the most?
What excites me about this project is what excites me about filmmaking in general: working with actors. I get so energized by being in a room with people, building trust, chasing moments, and seeing something beautiful emerge that wasn’t there before. There’s nothing like that moment on set when a scene you’ve been carrying around in your head suddenly becomes real. When an actor says a line and it lands differently than you imagined, or a small look or pause opens something up. That’s the magic for me. It’s the moment where the writing stops being theoretical and starts breathing.
What scares me most isn’t fear so much as a sense of responsibility. I feel the weight of wanting to get this right. I’m also very aware that this isn’t my experience. I haven’t lived with the fear and uncertainty that many immigrant families face, and I don’t want to pretend that I have. That awareness is why it’s important to me to surround myself with people who do. It’s how the film becomes more honest. I do feel confident in my ability to tell the story, but I also know it will be better because it’s being shaped by many voices.
Who on your team will you be relying on to help you bring this project to life?
I’ve recently started working with producer Larissa Cortes, which has been incredibly meaningful for this project. She grew up in Chicago, and we’ve followed each other’s work for a while with a shared hope of collaborating someday. As a first-generation Mexican American from Rogers Park, the story hit especially close to home for her. When she read the script, she reached out almost immediately and told me it left her in tears. That moment really stayed with me. It wasn’t just an emotional reaction, it spoke to how deeply she understood the world of the film. Larissa brings both care and sharp creative insight to the process, and she’s already jumped in fully. Having her perspective and experience is going to make a huge difference as we move toward production.
Finding the right cinematographer is always important to me, and especially on this film. I have my eye on a few DPs whose work I deeply admire, and I’m excited to begin those conversations. I like to come in with a clear point of view, but I don’t see cinematography as something to be executed. I see it as something to be discovered together. I’m looking forward to working with a DP who can engage with the ideas already on the table, challenge them, and help shape a visual language that grows out of the story itself, particularly around how light is used to reflect Gianna’s emotional perspective and sense of unease.
Wardrobe and production design are also going to be key collaborators for me on this film. Gianna’s clothing is super important. Going back to my love of Harriet the Spy, I’ve always liked how a character’s outfit can feel almost mythic, a kind of self-made armor. I have a very clear idea of what Gianna’s “superhero” outfit is and I can’t wait to see it come to life.
Production design plays a similar role. The film lives inside two family apartments. One reflects warmth, routine, a space shaped by care and presence. The other carries that same sense of family, but it’s been intruded upon, and left in a state of disarray. These environments aren’t just backgrounds; they hold history and help Gianna understand what safety looks like, and what it feels like when that safety is fractured.
Do you have any ideas and preferences on camera format, aspect ratio, crew, location, and anything else for the production?
I do have clear ideas around how I want this film to feel, and that naturally informs the camera and format choices. Having support from ARRI is huge, because I’ve had the ALEXA Mini LF in mind. I’ve worked with it before and trust it, especially in performance-driven situations. A lot of the film lives in tight interiors, and the Mini will allow us to stay physically close to Gianna and move with her without losing intimacy. Its dynamic range and skin tones also feel right for a story where so much emotion is carried in subtle shifts of light.
In terms of aspect ratio, I’m leaning 2.39. I like the tension of using a wide frame for a small, intimate story. It creates space around Gianna, even in close moments, encouraging the audience to search the frame the way she does. It gives you this feeling that something may be just out of view. That negative space becomes a quiet reminder of forced deportation and absence, allowing what’s missing to carry as much weight as what’s seen.
When it comes to lenses, I like what I’ve seen from the ARRI Signature Primes. They have a clean, filmic quality that stays sharp without feeling harsh, and they render faces in a way that feels natural rather than overly crisp or polished. I also like how they handle skin tones and contrast.
Location-wise, it’s a must that we shoot in Chicago, since the story is so rooted there. Little Village would be ideal, but we’ll ultimately need to balance authenticity with access and permitting realities.
I love the idea of shooting in late summer. The light feels warm and alive, but there’s an underlying tension as the season begins to shift. A calm, bright day can turn stormy without much warning, and that unpredictability feels aligned with the story.
What are your aspirations for the film once it’s completed?
Once the film is completed, my hope is to give it a thoughtful and meaningful life. I’d love for it to have a strong festival run, beginning with major festivals like Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, TIFF, and the Chicago International Film Festival, while also finding its way to festivals that feel deeply aligned with the story it’s telling.
It’s important to me that the film reaches audiences who recognize themselves in it. I’m especially interested in sharing it with audiences in Mexico and across Latin America through festivals like Guadalajara International Film Festival, Morelia International Film Festival, and Shorts México. Finding the right audiences matters just as much to me as finding big stages.
Beyond festivals, my aspiration is simply for the film to exist in the world in a meaningful way. To be seen, to spark conversation, and to create moments of connection. On a personal level, I see Know Your Lights as an important step in my growth as a storyteller. I hope it can stand fully on its own while also helping me continue building toward future narrative work.
Do you have any advice for emerging screenwriters looking to direct their own material and/or find a producer/director for their short script?
Al on set for Wonderland Magazine with Nick Jonas
Everyone’s path into filmmaking looks different, and I can only speak from my own experience. But one thing I strongly believe in is staying in the game however you can.
If you’re a writer who wants to direct your own work, the biggest challenge is often finding a way to keep making things while you’re waiting for the “right” opportunity. Early on, that might look like jobs or projects that don’t feel directly connected to your goals — wedding videos, corporate work, or side projects that aren’t exactly what you dreamed of. I’ve done all of that. At the time, it can feel like you’re drifting, but looking back, those years mattered. They kept me practicing, learning, and staying close to the craft.
Every project teaches you something. Shooting a wedding teaches you how to capture emotion as it happens. Editing sharpens your sense of rhythm, timing, and storytelling. Working with clients teaches you how to communicate ideas and collaborate. All these skills are essential when you’re trying to get a film made with other people’s time and money.
If you’re trying to find a producer or collaborators, my advice would be to keep making work and sharing it. Even small projects can become proof of voice and follow-through. This industry is smaller than it seems, and the people you meet early on often reappear later in unexpected ways.
So if there’s one thing I’d offer, it’s this: stay close to the work. Keep writing, keep making, keep learning how stories function in the real world, not just on the page. Even if you feel like you’re on the edges of the industry, you’re still in it. And that’s often where momentum starts to build.
Are there any lessons you’ve learned from your previous projects that will help you going forward with making your short film?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is about confidence. Not in a vague, motivational sense, but in a very practical, day-to-day way on set.
When I was younger, I won a contest to direct one of my scripts through a well-known rental house in Chicago. The catch was that I had to use their in-house DP. A fella named Jonah Rubash. At the time, I had only ever worked with my DP from film school, and I was pretty resistant to the idea of switching. To make matters worse, I already had a (somewhat unfair) grudge against Jonah.
On a previous project — the first short I ever raised money for on Kickstarter — we had planned a Steadicam sunset shot. We obviously couldn’t afford a nice Steadicam, so we rented a lower-end rig. I asked my DP if he could operate it. He said yes. When the sun was actually setting, it became clear that he couldn’t. As we were losing the light, we started watching instructional videos from the rental house… Jonah. He calmly walked through the setup at the slowest possible pace while our shot slipped away. I remember being furious. We ended up shooting handheld and missing what we’d planned.
So when I showed up late and annoyed to my first meeting with him, I was carrying all of that with me.
But something unexpected happened. We immediately hit it off. He was a bit older than me, more established, but just as much of a film nerd. We talked for hours about movies, art, and the script. Eventually, we grabbed beers, and I admitted something I hadn’t really said out loud before: that I was scared. Until then, I’d only made school projects or scrappy shorts where everything lived inside my own bubble. Now I was working with professionals, with a company, with real money and real expectations.
Jonah listened and then said something incredibly simple: “Fuck ’em. Be yourself. You have a vision. You believe in it inside. But you’re not acting like it outside.”
What he meant wasn’t to ignore people, or be ungrateful, or stop collaborating. It was about silencing the voice in my own head that told me I didn’t belong there — the rhetoric I was carrying that said I wasn’t ready or qualified.
That hit me hard. It was one of those full-body moments that snapped me out of my imposter syndrome. We made the film together, and then we kept making projects together. He’s still one of my closest friends, and that experience fundamentally changed how I show up as a director.
The lesson I carry forward now is this: preparation and collaboration matter a great deal, but confidence is contagious. People want to follow someone who knows what they’re doing and knows who they are. Going into this short, I’m much more comfortable trusting my instincts, communicating clearly, and creating an environment where collaborators feel invited into the vision, not responsible for replacing it.
That shift has made every project since stronger, and it’s something I’m bringing directly into this film.
What outside inspirations influence your work the most?
Movies, of course, are a huge influence. I try to see as many films as possible, and I still make it a point to go to the theater as much as I can. Whether it’s new releases or catching older films projected on film at Metrograph in NYC or Music Box in Chicago. There’s something about experiencing movies in a theater setting that keeps you inspired.
Outside of film, short stories have been an obsession of mine. I’m fascinated by the form. By how a writer can capture something so poignant, so rich, in just a few pages. There’s a discipline to it, an economy of storytelling that I really admire.
My apartment is filled with short story collections. They’re stacked on shelves and piled on my desk. I underline lines I love, and later, I go back through them whenever I need a creative spark.
One collection I keep coming back to is Georgia Under Water by Heather Sellers. I re-read it every couple of months. There’s something about those stories that gets under my skin in the best way. It would be my dream to adapt it to film. The way she writes is so raw and so human. It’s exactly the kind of storytelling I want to bring to my work. If someone could connect me with her I’d be so grateful (a guy can dream).
Anyway, I think that’s why I love both movies and short stories so much: they’re different mediums, but they both rely on finding the perfect moments to tell a story. One frame, one sentence, can be enough to knock the wind out of you.
What’s one piece of career advice that has stuck with you over the years?
The piece of advice that really stuck with me wasn’t something directly said to me, but something I heard at a screening of Sean Baker’s Tangerine. He did a Q&A after the film. (Tangerine was really blowing up at the time.)
Someone in the audience asked him about his process, and he started talking about the feeling you get between projects. That moment when you think, “Oh, I have no idea if I’m ever going to be able to make something again.” He talked about the desperation that creeps in between films. The uncertainty, the doubt. Am I going to get another project off the ground? Is this actually going to happen? Even if I can finance it, will I even get inspired enough to make another film?
And then he said something that struck a chord: “That feeling never goes away.”
I loved and hated hearing that at the same time.
I hated it because, man, even after success, after recognition, you’re still battling that same mental torture? That uncertainty is never going to stop? But at the same time, it weirdly comforted me because it meant I wasn’t alone.
That feeling wasn’t something I was going through because I hadn’t “made it” yet. It’s something all filmmakers and writers go through.
Since then, I’ve tried my best to change my attitude, to flip the perspective. Instead of, I don’t know what’s going to happen next, and that terrifies me. I try to think, I don’t know what’s going to happen next and that’s exciting.
The discovery, the unknown, that’s what makes it a journey. And those moments where inspiration finally hits? That’s what makes it all worth it.
Are you working on any other projects at the moment?
I’m close to finishing a feature script called Wrapped Around You, which I’m very excited about. I can’t give too much away, but it follows a couple who retreat to a remote lake house to try to save their failing relationship, only to realize something has embedded itself between them, weaponizing their fears and resentments in terrifying ways.
The story comes from the experience of being in a relationship that is both loving and damaging. The kind of love that feels cosmic one moment and unbearable the next. A love so intense it convinces you it must mean something, even as it slowly erodes you.
It’s a project I feel compelled to make, and I’ve been encouraged by the early response to the script. As one recent Shore Scripts coverage reader noted, “Wrapped Around You shows clear vision and a knack for creating memorable set-pieces, building tension without a release valve. It takes a toxic relationship and twists it into full-on body horror — exactly the kind of contained horror concept that could shine on the festival circuit.”
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The 2026 Spring Season of the Short Film Fund is now open. This season, we’re awarding a $15,000 cash production grant to one unproduced script and $4,000 in finishing funds to one short film in post-production. Learn more about some of the short films we’ve supported in the past here.
