Field hockey-playing sisters Koula Kajista and Katina Sosiadis are parents to children and don't just see their daughters competing in games.
They see the pressure and the mental stress. Before and after games, in the car rides, at the dinner table. They see the players interacting and competing. They see the joy and other emotions. And as filmmakers, they have a unique opportunity to communicate that to the world in a creative way.
Bethlehem natives Casista and Sosiadis are fast-tracking their new film, “The Next Play,” which is scheduled to begin shooting in the Lehigh Valley in July 2025. The pair previously wrote and directed “Epiphany” (2019), a film about a girl's struggle to connect with her father, which has been viewed more than 8 million times on YouTube.
Casista and Sosiadis officially introduced the project Thursday night at Allentown's Civic Theatre. Local actor Daniel Roebuck and current Olympian Ashley Sessa (one of 11 Pennsylvania natives) each recorded video messages for the event. Comedian and singer Galen Deeley performed, followed by Casista and Sosiadis answering questions during a Q&A.
Many members of the local field hockey community were in attendance, along with several friends and supporters from the industry.
When it came time to think of ideas for their next film, the choice wasn't difficult.
“When we started thinking about what to write, we were like, 'What's our next project?'” Casista said. “We want to make sure it's right, so it's going to take some time. So we wrote something to a producer in LA, and he said, 'This sounds like your first film. Why don't you try something unconventional?'”
“They asked us, 'What are you two passionate about right now?' and we said, 'Field hockey.' And we realized this was a world we wanted to explore. Sports movies are fun and there aren't many that feature women in them. So we decided to make a sports movie.”
“This is a big passion for us,” Sosiadis said. “It's never been made into a movie in the U.S., it's been made into a movie overseas but not here yet. We thought we could give this sport all its glory. I'm a big fan of the sport. This is a big passion for us.”
The Sosiaditzes played a little soccer starting in third grade — Kajista was a former Moravian Academy player — and their daughters played at Nazareth High School, Freedom High School and clubs, which further developed their love of the sport.
And they became privy to the subtext that impacts the player and the game.
Casista listed off. “Coach pressure. Parent pressure. Pressure on yourself,” she said. “Pressure from the other girls on the team. That gets put on the kids and it causes mental health issues. It's a field hockey movie, but it's also a mental health movie.”
The film depicts the rivalry between two high school teammates, a struggling star athlete and a competing rookie.
A field hockey film alone probably wouldn't be enough to make a film, especially since so few field hockey films exist. Sosiadis, the more artistic of the two, became familiar with the story of Morgan Rogers, the former Duke University women's lacrosse player who committed suicide in 2019.
“We started building a relationship with Donna (Morgan's mother) and Gary (Morgan's uncle),” Sosiadis said. “We learned more about their organization and were inspired.”
Butterflies, one of the symbols of Morgan's message, appear in the film. T-shirts and other merchandise featuring Morgan's butterflies went on sale Thursday.
“That's something that happens naturally with young girls,” Casista says. “They're competitive, that happens. Some girls have rivalries, others try to help each other. Our script has two girls, one of whom is Reese, who is very competitive and in a slump. Then a new girl (Kate) joins the team and takes her place. It's about those two girls and their rivalry.”
In the film industry, Casista and Sosiadis worked their way up from the bottom while raising their families. It wasn't easy. It meant taking their kids to Tarpon Springs, Fla., to film “Epiphany,” which meant other sacrifices and adjustments. Casista had to care for her kids, Mena, Teddy and Manny, while Sosiadis also had to care for her kids, Ellie, Mari and Ali.
When the Blue Eagles took on the Patriots, cousins Mena (Nazareth) and Ellie (Freedom) faced off.
“[Raising] “Raising kids while working in the film industry is very hard,” Casista says, “but it's so important to us to show our kids that dreams can come true. It may sound corny, but when we were little, we dreamed of being film directors. It took a long time to get to this point, but we were persistent and kept working towards our first feature film. Our kids were little then, so I'm not sure they fully understood what we were trying to achieve. Our experience with The Next Play has been very different. My daughters, especially my niece Ellie, have been an integral part of the process… They were all so helpful and seemed interested in what we were doing.”
Once the idea for “The Next Play” blossomed, countless other things needed to fall into place.
“You need a script,” Sosiadis says, “You need a beginning, a middle and an end. You have different characters to play around with and develop. Get the best script you can and start writing.”
“Writing and working creatively with my sister is an interesting process. She'll come up with something, email me and say, 'Hey, what about this?' and I'll say, 'Hey, what about this?' We're always talking. We're always taking things out of the script and adding things to it to make it the best it can be.”
Sosiadis said he imagines the scenes as he writes the script, which highlights the importance of the fact that they are both writers and directors.
“We love each other, but we don't always like each other,” Casista said. “Katina is very creative. She has a lot of big ideas. She's an artist. She has great ideas, but she needs to express them in a more practical and logical way. That's where we work together. She writes the lines and we put them into the script. I'm more involved in the structure.”
As for casting, professional actors will play the main roles, but Sosiadis and Casista want real Pennsylvanians on the field for the game scenes. They want authenticity. They don't want a movie with actors who can't play in a game.
“This is a big deal for us,” Casista said. “To be honest, we've been watching the game for years, so we know what it's like. … We're going to cast some local girls who know how to play, but we haven't decided on the lead roles yet. … They have to know how to play.”
“Field hockey is huge in Pennsylvania, so why not film it here?”
Tim Shoemaker is a freelance writer.
