Have you spent the last few weeks curiously scrolling (or eagerly clicking on) those super enticing clips from DramaShorts’ My Sexy Mentor Seduced Me? Just me… I highly doubt it. While the show’s co-stars Alissa Filoramo and Eloise Lola Gordon are breaking the internet with their electric on-screen portrayal of Birdie and Vera’s forbidden romance, the unsung heroes of this sapphic fever dream are the women behind the script: Chrissie De Guzman and Cate Fogarty.
The writing duo is a formidable pairing of industry experience and fresh vision: De Guzman arrives with a seasoned background as a television and feature film writer-director, while Fogarty is a rapidly rising force as a writer, director, and producer. Together, they are absolutely dominating the vertical scene. The two creative powerhouses co-founded Vertical Sunsets, a full-service, budget-conscious microdrama production company that focuses on diversity in entertainment, specifically filmmaking by women, BIPOC, and queer storytellers. The female-forward and queer-centric energy is long-overdue, and a refreshing shift in the industry.
Critics often dismiss microdramas due to their fairly new and undiscovered nature, but they are quickly becoming the “wild west” of digital entertainment, transforming into a full-on content ecosystem that’s proven lucrative in an already fast-paced medium. Chrissie and Cate have managed to capture our attention and our hearts in such a short timeframe, and dare I say they’ve managed to emulate lightning in a bottle with their multi-layered characters and relatable storylines. With My Sexy Mentor, they haven’t just written a viral hit; they have built a powerful and passionate bond between Birdie and Vera that is grounded in genuine emotion that the audience cannot get enough of. They advocate that even a 60-second episode deserves genuine nuance, and one thing’s for sure, it’s a delicate balancing act between keeping the light salacious moments the platform craves while protecting the integrity of a queer romance that clearly resonates with millions on a global scale.
Fandomize had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with these talented women to zoom in behind the scenes of the My Sexy Mentor phenomenon. We spoke in-depth about the co-writing process and dynamics on set, discussing how the two navigate pushing boundaries of the vertical space without losing the true depth of their stories, and of course, we had to ask the question everyone is screaming in all of our social media comments: Will there be a sequel? From the possibility of a second chapter for Birdie and Vera to the future projects they have in the works, Chrissie and Cate share it all. Whether you’re a superfan of the series or just fascinated by how two writers turned a woman-loves-woman story in a saturated digital format into a now 32-million-view marvel, this deep dive into their creative partnership is a must-watch.