Senior Arianna Valme led the student short film “Vixen” to victory in the 2024 Canes Film Festival. The health sciences and chemistry student called on her high school musical theater experience to cause the ultimate upset.
“Vixen” director and writer Nicky Gonzalez knew Valme was her lead from her first audition. “Ari is the definition of a strong, beautiful woman, which is what I was looking for during casting,” Nicky said. “I can’t imagine anyone else.”
Valme plays Jazmine, an insecure college student who is struggling with her love life. She becomes obsessed with a nail technician and goes to dangerous lengths to get him to notice her. On the verge of psychosis, Jazmine invites him to her birthday party to get her happily ever after.
Just from reading the script, Valme knew exactly what Jazmine was. “Crazy,” Valme said. She recalled thinking to herself, “Wait? What happens?” often when reading it.
The character’s hidden humanity attracted Valme to the role. Jazmine’s heart-wrenching monologue about wanting love showed Valme that there’s a method to the madness.
Gonzalez created Jazmine to highlight young women’s experiences with love. She drew on personal conflicts to depict how love can make some change and act rash for a shot at prince charming.
“It was really important to me to have a protagonist whose experience with love could be relatable,” Gonzalez said. “Jazmine was my vessel for portraying that.”
Valme understood the role’s importance and collaborated with Gonzalez on set to ensure her performance was true to Jazmine.
She was eager to get in touch with Jazmine’s dark side and commit to challenging scenes to tell the best version of her story.
To get in character, Valme would listen to “Dance With My Father” by Luther Vandross. She reviewed films and television shows to see how artists tackled characters like Jazmine.
Knowing the end of “Vixen” completely altered Valme’s approach to the character. She felt she could no longer portray a lost soul who descended into lunacy, but someone who’s been mad all along.
Ethan Storey, the film’s editor and assistant director, organized it to best reflect Jazmine’s declining state. Instead of editing chronologically, Storey intercut the film with flashbacks to reflect her scrambled mentality.
Storey shot scenes with a wide angle instead of an intimate close-up to highlight how Jazmine’s relationship with the nail tech was mostly one-sided.
“It was extremely important to occasionally show the contrasting reality of a situation and to not always stay in Jazmine’s mind,” Storey said.
Silence was Storey and Valme’s ultimate weapon. In the film’s bloody, climactic ending, they used silence to capitalize on Jazmine’s profound shame.
“While dialogue is often powerful and necessary, sometimes a lot can be said with silence,” Storey said.
Despite Jazmine’s actions, Valme would not call her a villain.
“A lot of the things she does are scary, but we could relate to her,” Valme said. She recalled the moment after she finished Jazmine’s tearful speech when she could tell it emotionally impacted everyone on set.
The moment of truth came on May 5 at 7 p.m. as hundreds of filmmakers gathered at the Bill Cosford Cinema for the Canes Film Festival award ceremony.
The “Vixen” cast and crew gathered and sat in anticipation. As other films dominated the categories, their anxiety grew, but their faith never wavered.
Waves of relief and accomplishment washed over them as Valme was crowned best actress.
“It was kind of surprising,” Valme said. “I was grateful.”
Her glistening star-shaped award now sits on her desk as she prepares for the new academic year. Despite being done with Jazmine, Valme still feels her lingering in the back of her mind.
“When you get into that crazy headspace, sometimes it’s hard to switch out,” Valme said.
As a member of the UM film fraternity Delta Kappa Alpha, Valme looks forward to staying involved in filmmaking and taking the spotlight again. She has already received offers to star in other productions.
Valme works to balance her involvement in acting and science like her role model Ken Jeong. Either on the silver screen or scientific journals, Valme aims to make her mark on the world.