‘I Used to Be Funny’ Director Ally Pankiw Talks Rachel Sennott Movie

During her time in journalism school, writer-director Ally Pankiw discovered documentary studies and broadcast news, and immediately fell in love with video editing and production.

Although she didn’t attend traditional film school, she taught herself the basics of Final Draft after graduating and started writing. After directing Season 1 of Netflix’s “Feel Good,” the “Joan Is Awful” episode of “Black Mirror” and more, Pankiw finally got funding for her first feature film: “I Used to Be Funny,” starring “Shiva Baby” breakout Rachel Sennott.

The film is in select theaters via Utopia and was released digitally on June 18. Sennott stars as Sam, a stand-up comedian struggling with PTSD after being sexually assaulted. She tries to decide whether or not to look for Brooke (Olga Petsa), a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. The story swaps between past and present, where Sam navigates her trauma.

Pankiw tells Variety that the script for the film was thematically tied to her life and the women around her. She wanted to explore recovering and healing in a different way than the other revenge or melodramatic counterparts in pop culture.

“I didn’t see anything that was just sort of about the two steps forward and one step back cycle of recovery, and I wanted to speak to that,” Pankiw says.

Sennott and Petsa’s characters also share a unique, intergenerational bond throughout the film — an important…