Roleplay

Roleplay is a feature documentary that follows a group of college students as they confront sexual violence on their campus through a transformative theater process.  This urgent coming of age story follows young adults grappling with sex, consent, identity, and power on their paths to adulthood.

Screenings

Our film festival circuit ended in 2025, but catch ROLEPLAY at one of our community screenings through 2026!

  • SXSW Film Festival:  World Premiere, March 9, 2024

    SXSW Film Festival: March 13, 2024

    SXSW Film Festival: March 16, 2024

  • NOFF:  October 18, 2024

    NOFF:  October 22, 2024

  • Heartland International Film Festival: October 11, 2024

    Heartland International Film Festival: October 13, 2024

  • Screening at Ragtag Cinema presented by True / False Film Festival and the Mizzou School of Journalism: October 10, 2024

  • DOC NYC: November 20, 2024

    DOC NYC: November 21, 2024

  • American Film Festival: November 5-11, 2024

  • Centre Film Festival - November 11, 2024

PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS

This film could not have been made without the support of:

Screening Partners include:

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  • “It changed me. Access to these brilliant young minds and what they’ve accomplished got to me on a cellular level. I remembered to be hopeful for a moment.”

    Ashley Smith, Flagpole

  • “One of the best docs I’ve seen so far this year is Katie Mathews’ “Roleplay,” a film that truly surprised me because it does what so few films like this are willing to do: It lets its subjects be messy, unpredictable, and human… Mathews has a deceptively subtle voice as a director, providing a supportive platform more than insisting on cinematic results. It leads to a film that’s all the more powerful by virtue of feeling so very real.”

    Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com

Meet the Team

Katie Mathews
Director / Producer

Abby Epstein
Executive Producer

  • ABBY EPSTEIN's first documentary, V-Day: Until the Violence Stops premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and received a Primetime Emmy Award and a Gracie Allen Award.  She has been directing films for over fifteen years with her producing partner Ricki Lake including the award-winning feature docs, The Business of Being Born, and Weed the People. Abby produced the documentaries Breastmilk and The Mama Sherpas and is most recently directed The Business of Birth Control, released in 2022.  Prior to working in film, Abby directed Broadway theater, including RENT, The Vagina Monologues and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Darcy McKinnon
Producer

  • Darcy McKinnon is a documentary filmmaker based in New Orleans whose work focuses on the American South and the Caribbean. Recently released projects include A KING LIKE ME and ROLEPLAY (SXSW, 2024), COMMUTED (PBS, 2024), ALGIERS, AMERICA (Hulu, 2023), UNDER G-D (Sundance 2023), LOOK AT ME! XXXTENTACION (SXSW, Hulu, 2022) and THE NEUTRAL GROUND (Tribeca, POV, 2021). Current projects in production include Jason Fitzroy Jeffers’s THE FIRST PLANTATION, Abe Felix’s TURNAROUND, CJ Hunt’s UNLEARNED, Nicole Craine’s KINFOLK and Zac Manuel’s THE INSTRUMENT. McKinnon’s work has been seen on World Channel, AfroPop, POV, Reel South, LPB and Hulu and has screened at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, CPH:DOX and more. She is an alum of the Impact Partners Producing Fellowship and the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellowship and is a recipient of American Documentary’s Creative Visionary Award.

Jenny Mercein
Producer

  • Jenny Mercein (she/her) is a theater-maker, writer, storyteller, and producer. She’s been at Tulane since 2016, and currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance. Originally from New York, Jenny received a BA in Theater Studies and the History of Art from Yale University and an MFA in Acting from the University of Washington. She is the proud recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Tulane chapter of Mortar Board in 2023. She is also a member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and the National Alliance of Acting Teachers.

Paavo Hanninen
Director of Photography

  • Paavo Hanninen is an Alabama born-and-raised, Texas educated, New Orleans-refined and Los Angeles-based writer/director.

    Seasoned filmmaker living in Los Angeles. A 2025 Davey Foundation grant recipient for his forth-coming short film White Italian Truffles in Brine. Currently in development on his feature debut, Remote View, as writer/director for script which was a finalist for the Nantucket Screenwriters Colony and now has name talent attached. His feature script Deep Fake was named a finalist for the Film Independent Screenwriters' Lab and the Story Incubator Writers' Lab.

Katie Pham
Co - Producer

  • Katie Pham is a born-and-raised New Orleanian, and connects the dots at Gusto through field producing, archival research and distribution. She’s a Co-Producer on Roleplay (dir. Katie Mathews) and From Way Downtown (dir. Paavo Hanninen) and an Associate Producer on The Neutral Ground (dir. CJ Hunt), Commuted (dir. Nailah Jefferson) and Natchez (dir. Suzannah Herbert). As a freelance producer, she’s also producing projects including The Gardeners (dir. Crystal Kayiza), Talking Tiki (dir. Casey Beck and Asali Echols), Chinatown Down South (dir. Nancy Lauland). She also has experience in film festival operations, at festivals including the New Orleans Film Festival and Overlook Film Festival.