Madison Hatfield

Y’all probably missed it but it’s actually a NEW YEAR, and while some days even thinking about my career feels like the silliest thing I could ever do, I invested in myself to hire the amazing @actorfootage to craft this reel so BY GOLLY I’m gonna share it. Some things to note: 1. I am very proud of this. 2. The work I am most proud of…is not on here. It’s wild to me that this industry doesn’t hold independent projects in the same esteem as more established network/studio works because I have pushed the hardest, learned the most, and shined the brightest in independent films. Alas, we play the game. 3. I started pursuing acting in earnest in 2016. I filmed my first episode of TV in 2021. Everything you see here is work I filmed in a two year span (2021-2023) after a five year stretch of no network bookings at all. The name of the game is Just Keep Showing Up. I am grateful to my @stewarttalentatlanta team who stuck with me and believed even before I did that the jobs would come. Thanks for watching. And thanks to all the people who have made working in Atlanta, my hometown and my whole heart, a consistently positive, challenging, and inspiring experience. We really do have so much to offer.

I wish I could bottle this feeling and give it you. Being surrounded by family, friends, collaborators, filmmakers, and film lovers in the beautiful (and FULL) @plazaatlanta , witnessing their electric and raucous delight as @icoulddom played, and having the privilege - on stage and off - of celebrating what our Georgia film community is and what it could be has given me a clarity and assurance of purpose that is nothing short of life-changing. This feeling I have right now - that I am exactly where I am meant to be, doing exactly what I am meant to do - is a gift you have all given me, and I want to do more than thank you. I want to do everything I can to make you feel it, too. In Georgia, we have a unique opportunity to build a new kind of film industry that is different and BETTER - for ourselves and for those who are coming up behind us. With our robust infrastructure and immense pool of talented artists, we no longer need anyone else’s permission to create on our own terms. We are developing a self-sustaining, community-driven film ecosystem that centers independent work and allows the WORKING CLASS film artist to survive and thrive. Organizations like @filmimpactgeorgia , businesses like @waxwanefilms , and people like the ones who filled this room give me so much hope that with time, intention, and organization, we can make independent film the heart of the Georgia industry, and we can produce it humanely, sustainably, and with compassion for the stories we tell and the people we tell them with. When people think of excellent independent film, they will think of Georgia. They will COME to Georgia. And we will teach them what we have learned, together. Thank you to every person involved in every Wax&Wane film that screened (including, of course, the wonderful men of W&W themselves), thank you to all of you who showed up and showed out, thank you to the Plaza employees for taking such good care of us, and thank you @lolascottart for capturing this moment where my soul caught fire. I look at myself here and it is so obvious: THAT is a woman who knows who she is and what she wants. And now I’m gonna go get it.

I plus-oned my way into the experience of a lifetime, and I will be forever grateful for the many ways being a part of the #ADAMA154 delegation expanded my spirit. Marrakech is an astonishing city bursting at its seams with sound, color, and conflicting dualities—desert sands against snow-capped mountains, opulent luxury against desperate lack, the enduring strength of indigenous culture against the interminable echoes of colonialism. It is a city that holds so many truths at once, and it makes sense of them all through the art that permeates every facet of this fundamentally multifaceted place. Experiencing the art of Marrakech, the @154artfair , and the @montressoartfoundation reminded me so viscerally that art is the connective tissue of humanity, where we all turn to contend with ourselves, our world, and our relationships to and within it. Our spiritual drive to create is as old as our species and it is inextinguishable. On this trip I saw moving works crafted with toothpicks, yarn, nails, PVC pipes, sand…just to name a few. More than ever I felt the tenacity of creation, and that is the unique power of the artists of Africa and its rich diaspora. The darkest and most damnable human impulses have visited unforgivable atrocities upon this continent and its people, and the art speaks to that. It also soars far above that in spaces of boundless peace and joy. Perhaps the original human duality is the chaotic capriciousness of existence against the steady exaltation of the spirit through art. I have never felt this balance more profoundly than I did on this trip, upon this land, amongst these artists and their work. I am a better human for it. An enormous thank you to @earthcandyarts , @fahamupecou , and @esohegalbreath for organizing our Atlanta delegation and crafting our shared experience with such care and intention. For my Atlantans, you can experience work like this for yourself at @adama_atl when their next exhibit opens on the 26th. And of course, thank you to @austinbenjaminsq for bringing me with you. As if hanging the moon wasn’t enough, you’ve gone and cracked my world wide open, too.

Three months ago today I landed in Tbilisi with my camera and seven rolls of Super 8 film. I have enough footage to make a million different versions of this, and there are a million things I could say about the experiences I had. But this morning, I am called to share this version and these thoughts: I felt peace amongst a people who love guests and strangers with the same ferocity that they love their families. I found peace amongst a culture that does not see openness as a threat to tradition. I found peace amongst a land that has endured centuries of war and triumph and blood and gold and despair and change and survived long enough to know that love and peace are all that matter. That faith and hope will guide you there. That we will lose our way. That we must help one another home. I made this with love. I hope it brings you peace. May the lessons of this place find purchase in the hearts that need them. 🇬🇪

Just off I-75, behind an unassuming Seventh Day Adventist church in Calhoun, Georgia, there is a Rock Garden. Constructed by a man who prefers to go by Old Dog and his children and grandchildren, the small creekside plot is dotted with over 50 structures that visitors can walk through and wonder at for free. In a year that gifted me many opportunities to travel near and far to bask in the glories of nature and mankind, I was grateful to have stumbled into this garden right at the end of the year as the perfect reminder of what we are here for: to make and to marvel. We make art, friends, meals, amends, families, homes, gestures, sacrifices, mistakes, and masterpieces. We marvel at what those around us can do and, when we remember, at our own miracles, too. I am grateful to have existed another year and excited to begin another. I am finally beginning to understand that my life - with all its changes, challenges, surprises, and swings - is the greatest marvel of all. I thank all the beautiful people in my life who make it with me every day. Happy New Year. May you stumble into many gardens. May you be the garden someone stumbles into.

‘Commercially Hot People Make Bad Rom-Coms’ by @madhat31 Filmed at: @plazaatlanta Lobby Correspondent: @notoriouspey 🎥: @ilsaflynn Produced/edited: @strandedonstage #behindtheslatepod #sydneysweeney #glennpowell #romcom

WELCOME TO THE WINNER CIRCLE 🏆 @madhat31 director of “I Could Dom” Madison took home the @muse__world mentorship and $500 cash prize last night after flooring our audience with her sexy a$$ vision during our sex positive shorts round of @atlfilmparty ! We’re blessed to have you. #winner #cashprize #filmmaker #film #shortfilm #dom

As a birthday gift from me to me, I took myself to Georgia (the other one 🇬🇪). To preempt your first question: I saw a travel show episode on Tbilisi while getting my nails done and it made me cry and that’s why I went. Before I left I knew it would be beautiful, I knew the food and wine would be amazing, and I knew that I was proud of myself for being able to execute a trip like this all on my own. I could not have anticipated how profoundly this place would change the way I looked at what it means to exist, on a collective and individual level. This Georgia is OLD. I have never been to a land that has had people on it for that long. And it highlighted for me that America is so YOUNG. And in the same way that a young person is constantly grappling with how to feel secure in themselves, I come from a nation that does that, too. Georgia has existed and persisted long enough to understand that the traditions of love, openness, family, and community are all that matter. They showed me what religious devotion without intolerance looks like. They showed me what national pride without bigotry looks like. They showed me what commitment to tradition without aversion to progress looks like. To be in Georgia is to be reminded what is important in this life, and it will remind you over and over and over again. This trip was also the loneliest I have ever felt. Walking around, I did not hear English spoken unless it was for my benefit. I could not eavesdrop on conversations or feel at ease striking up a chat with a stranger. I knew most Georgians could speak English, but their language is so sacred to them. It felt wrong to ask them to step out of it. And so I was alone with my thoughts. Luckily, I was also alone with a beautiful corner of the earth. I was alone with the best food I have ever eaten. And I was alone with people who I knew would move heaven and earth to help me if I asked. Because I was their guest, and they told me again and again that for Georgians, every guest is a gift from God. And so I, just as I was — alone as I was — felt like a gift. And that was a beautiful feeling. I cannot wait to go back.

it’s the little movie that could (dom). stream the award-winning short film I Could Dom on YouTube NOW! that’s an order 😈

A friend told me recently that I am a “beautiful example of someone who LIVES.” I was so moved by that because this was a year that I thought about the act of living a lot. And tried very hard at it. And I genuinely feel that this past year I got better at living. I got better at remembering what is real and what isn’t. I got better at knowing why I’m here: to love, to make, to help. The internet isn’t real, and it isn’t where I love or make or help, but I am glad it’s around so I can share a film we MADE that is full of LOVE and at the very least has helped ME in more ways than I can say. I would also like to shout out some places and organizations that have become rituals in my life and tether me to my community. They make living well easier than ever: To help, I work with @globalvillageproject and @solunderground . Support them if you can. To feel love for and in my body, I go to @dance_church to strengthen my heart and @teamlissmash for all the other muscles. It feels good to be strong. To experience the love and the making of others, I go to at least one @reelfriendsmovies event per month. It’s good for the soul. And I can’t recommend being a regular at a restaurant enough. Going to @sammysatl every Friday makes me feel known and cared for. Food is loving and making and helping all wrapped up into one. They’re hosting my party today and I couldn’t be more grateful. Of course there is also my family. My friends. My neighbors. The people I meet in town and around the country who surround me with support and inspiration and laughter. Loving you, making with you, and helping you is my greatest joy. Thank you for being here. I look at these two images and I see myself. My body is changed, my mind is changed, my life is changed, but something in my spirit is resilient. I’m 36 now, but I still have my arms up, tits out, eyes closed, and heart open to whatever living comes next. She is still someone who lives. And she’s looking forward to more of it.

$10,885 raised on @seedandspark 122 supporters 70 cast and crew members 31 days crowdfunding 28 rejections 25 festivals and screenings 20 cities around the world 17 months on the circuit 14 shooting pages 13 months from script to screen 12 executive producers 7 Oscar-qualifying tests 5 screenings in Georgia (including one to come…👀) 4 months of pre-production 3 days of shooting 2 filming locations 1. MORE. DAY. I Could Dom releases online at 7am/ET on Sunday, October 5 Sub(scribe) now to @reelfriendsmovies on YouTube. Party with us on release day at @sammysatl from 4pm to 8pm. Make a plan to share the film with everyone you’ve ever loved. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: @icoulddom ’s journey is just beginning. Come* with us. *cum