Filmmaking is, traditionally, one of the most inaccessible art forms — especially for college students who are trying to make their presence known in an already oversaturated industry.

However, this hasn’t stopped the minds behind the project “Lingering Sins,” a student film directed by Madeleine Tsai, a sophomore majoring in cinema and media studies as well as sociology.

“Lingering Sins” is set to start filming in November. Before filming can start, though, copious amounts of financial planning have to take place — especially because Tsai and her producers, Diego Casillas and Pablo Uribe, are operating on a small, independent budget.

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“It’s obviously harder, you know, to have the funds necessary to make the short film than if you have a feature-length film and a production company supporting you,” said Casillas, a sophomore majoring in cinema and media studies.

The film is the brainchild of Tsai and Casillas, who hope to portray their own underrepresented identities in the characters of the story. “Lingering Sins” tells the story of a young woman who must cope with the death of her girlfriend while being haunted by her past mistakes.

“We just knew that we wanted to make something that centered around the LGBTQ+ narrative and people of color, and so that was something that really motivated us,” Tsai said. “I was with Diego, our producer, in Starbucks filming. We sent [screenwriter] Zsuzsanna a 30-minute long voice memo, basically just saying a lot of gibberish, really. And then she was like, ‘Okay, give me an outline, and then we’ll see what we can do.’ So that’s kind of how it all started.”

Since the idea’s conception, the project has quickly moved through pre-production and is now tackling its next steps: casting, marketing and fundraising.

“As a producer, our most important thing is money,” said Uribe, a sophomore majoring in business administration. “We’re also in touch with the marketing team because without the marketing, it’s really difficult to make money.”

Marketing has become one of the most important aspects of filmmaking, as production companies like A24 and Neon have pushed the industry standard to include innovative new strategies behind drawing eyes to a film’s release.

“We wanted to create an immersive experience between the actors and the audience,” Uribe said. “We were thinking of maybe creating a TikTok account for the actor. They film things and do trends as if they were real people — trying to break the fourth wall, trying to be immersive with the audience.”

Uribe and Casillas are both from Mexico City, but it wasn’t until they arrived at USC that they had the opportunity to meet. The two founded a production company together, titled Flaca y Polo, which is helping to produce “Lingering Sins” as its first project. Unlike Casillas, who has previous experience working on production crews, this is Uribe’s first time producing a film.

“I really like film, but I’m more interested in the business aspect of the entertainment industry,” Uribe said.

“For this production company, I would like to actually create it and make it something out in Mexico, because right now Mexico is not producing the quality of films that they had in the ’90s, for example.”

While Uribe specializes in the business side of production, Tsai and Casillas captain the more artistic endeavors.

“We’ve been working like crazy. We are very organized about everything so we know the shot and exactly what we’re scouting for so we don’t lose any time,” Casillas said.

Even though the fast-paced schedule of putting a film together can be stressful, the directorial crew of “Lingering Sins” is making sure to emphasize the importance of community at the center of the process.

“We want to create a very relaxed and harmonious work environment where you’re there because you like the story, because you want to tell the meaning of that, because you’re passionate about what we’re trying to do,” Casillas said.

Much of the desire to work on independent films is to gain experience in the industry and learn the ropes of filmmaking, but “Lingering Sins” hopes to strike a deeper chord within viewers and crew members alike, showing why it deserves not to be written off as “just another student film.”

“The most important part of the film is to support the LGBTQ+ community and showcase the horrendous environments that we still live in in many, many countries. In Mexico, it’s very, very hard to be gay,” Casillas said. “If the viewer, the actors, the crew, everyone can leave after working on it or watching the film with a good feeling, but also with a question or a reflection, that’s the goal.”