How Kylie Eaton’s ‘Dispel’ takes an honest look at addiction
Kylie Eaton’s short film Dispel still stands out for the way it frames addiction through the eyes of a child who refuses to give up. The story follows Lizzie, played by Eris Baker, as she watches her mother slip away and tries to pull her back using the rules of her favorite fantasy series, Celeste Skygood. Gina Torres plays the mother whose transformation into something monstrous makes the illness visible on screen. The approach keeps the focus on the daughter’s determination rather than the spectacle of the disease itself.
The film first traveled the festival circuit in 2019, earning the Mary Shelley Award at Other Worlds Austin and opening the Bushwick Film Festival. It later found a permanent home on the DUST YouTube channel, where new viewers continue to discover Eaton’s take on recovery and fantasy. That streaming presence has kept the conversation alive long after the initial screenings.
Dispel on DUST and Streaming Legacy
The DUST platform gave Dispel a second life beyond festival dates. The short sits on the channel alongside other genre work that blends speculative worlds with grounded emotional stakes. Viewers who land on it now meet Lizzie’s story without needing a ticket or a press pass. The placement also introduced Eaton’s name to audiences who track science-fiction shorts as a regular habit rather than a once-a-year event.
That ongoing availability matters because the film’s central image—an alcoholic parent turned literal monster—still resonates with people looking for stories that treat addiction as both personal and systemic. The DUST run keeps the conversation accessible instead of locking it behind festival archives.
Kylie Eaton's Evolving Career Trajectory
After Dispel, Eaton directed the proof-of-concept short Kinetic in 2020, which won the Industry Next Award and showed she could scale her visual language for larger projects. In 2024 she premiered Starborn at Hollyshorts, a piece that shifts the lens to reproductive rights in a space-age setting. Both films keep her signature mix of genre trappings and intimate character work while expanding the themes she first explored through Lizzie’s eyes.
Her feature screenplays have placed in ScreenCraft, Shore Scripts, and WeScreenplay competitions, signaling that the same narrative priorities are traveling to longer formats. The trajectory shows steady movement from festival shorts to lab placements and larger industry recognition without losing the personal core that defined her early work.
Leadership at Alliance of Women Directors
Eaton moved from participant to Interim Executive Director at the Alliance of Women Directors, where she now leads strategic growth and the Rising Director Fellowship. The role lets her shape the same pipeline that once supported her own early workshops. She has represented the organization at panels, including a 2026 Sundance session on filmmaker development, turning personal experience into institutional support for others.
That leadership position also keeps her connected to the practical questions she answered in the original interview—how to find mentors, how to balance multiple roles, how to protect the story when resources are tight. The answers now carry the weight of someone who has helped build the structures she once navigated alone.
Recent Accolades and Industry Recognition
Beyond the original festival wins, Eaton’s work has earned further notice through lab selections and screenplay placements that mark her as a filmmaker moving into the next tier. The Mary Shelley Award and Bushwick opening slot sit alongside later honors that reflect both artistic consistency and industry momentum. These markers matter because they track how a director who started with music videos and experimental shorts has sustained a clear point of view across multiple projects.
The recognition also underscores the continued relevance of Dispel itself. The film’s willingness to treat fantasy as a coping mechanism rather than an escape hatch still feels fresh, especially as more creators look for ways to dramatize recovery without reducing it to cautionary tales or inspirational arcs.
Eaton’s interview responses from the time of Dispel remain the clearest window into how she thinks about genre, collaboration, and persistence. She described starting in post-production and music videos before moving into narrative work, citing early influences from Spielberg’s ability to let teen protagonists carry stories that still land with adults. She spoke about lying on the couch to outline scripts, researching scientific concepts, then pulling visual references from films outside the genre she was working in. Those habits show up again in later shorts that keep character relationships at the center even when the worlds grow more elaborate.
Her advice to new filmmakers—shoot a proof of concept, prioritize human behavior over flashy effects, set up pre-production so directing can stay the focus once cameras roll—has aged into guidance that applies across budgets and formats. The same principles appear in the way she now runs fellowship programs and panels, extending the practical lessons she learned while making Dispel to a wider circle of directors.
The five-year outlook she sketched in 2019, focused on raising skill and production value with each project, continues to describe her current output. She still directs, writes, and leads initiatives that support other women in the field. The through-line from the original short to the present is the same commitment to honest emotional stories told through altered realities, whether the setting is a child’s bedroom or a speculative future.
Audiences can tune into DISPEL’s online premiere here, via YouTube
