Name: Iliza Shlesinger

Notable past credits: The stand-up comic, who won “Last Comic Standing” in 2008, is known for “The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show,” six comedy specials for Netflix, and the late-night talk show “Truth & Iliza.”

Sundance Project: “Chasing Summer,” which she wrote and stars in, directed by Josephine Decker and costarring Garrett Wareing, Lola Tung, Cassidy Freeman, Tom Welling and Megan Mullally. 

“It was really a labor of love, and it’s so special to get to share it with all these people that we basically had summer camp with for 19 days this summer in St. Louis,” Shlesinger says of the film, which follows a woman who returns to her hometown after a breakup and losing her job and reunites with friends and former love interests from her past.

Shlesinger came up with the idea in 2018, and sent herself an email at the time with the concept. 

“The email was something along the lines of what if high school came back to get you and what if, and I don’t want to give anything away in this, but it was basically about getting to relive that last summer that we’ve all had right after you graduate high school,” she says, “and how warm that summer can be and the frustration and comfort of living in your parents’ house and all those things.”

Shlesinger got married in 2018, and the process had her thinking about moving from one chapter of life into the next.

“I was so excited and looking forward to this next chapter with my best friend, the love of my life. But in a way, I was mourning the closing of the chapter on my youth,” she says. “When you’re with your partner, there are no more summer flings. Not that I had a ton of those, but there’s no more possibility. And you trade in that energy and that electricity for the stability that a lot of us crave and all the beautiful things that come from a marriage and family. And especially for a comic, I’ve been on the road since I was 25, it was just a quieting and saying goodbye to that. And I call it a summer because a summer represents this fleeting, ephemeral fun and warmth and you have a kind of bulls–t job and no responsibility and you can stay at your parents’ house and you’re going somewhere later. I get goosebumps thinking about it.“

Ahead of the film’s Sundance premiere, Shlesinger was feeling optimistic. 

“When I do stand-up, I expect that they’re going to laugh because I know exactly where the laughs are and I’ve done it enough that I know mathematically where they are. [With this], I hope that people watch this and come along for the hang of it,” she says. “I hope people feel nostalgic. It takes place in the suburbs of Texas — I’m from Dallas — and I had a very normal suburban upbringing and it’s very Texas. But if you are from anywhere else, I think this will speak to you because this nostalgia, while specifically Texas and Millennial, is still ubiquitous. And I hope in showing my fondness for my own memories, that people find themselves in those memories.”