A hurricane threatens in French filmmaker's story set in 'paradise' of Atlantic Beach

Young French filmmaker Alexandra Simpson grew up in Paris, but memories of little Atlantic Beach tucked up in the northeast corner of Florida were hard for her to shake.

“It’s always in the back of my head," she said. "Always. It’s like haunting me in a way, honestly. It’s like I dream about it. The smells, the sounds ..."

The old shingled houses along Beach Avenue, the ocean, the bicyclists, the walkers, the skaters. Old people, young people. "Every time we came here it was like a paradise to us, me and my brother. A paradise that was linked to a certain sense of nostalgia," she said.

While growing up in France, Simpson often came to Atlantic Beach to visit with her father, Bob Simpson, a Jacksonville native and one of the area's first surfers, who became an international lawyer in Paris. And when she began thinking of making her first feature film, the beach town began to come to life in her imagination.

Now it's the setting for her first feature film, "No Sleep Till," an independent project that follows an ensemble cast of young people (including a French woman) as a hurricane approaches Atlantic Beach and the streets begin to empty out.

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Hurricane season

Filming is expected to start in mid-September and last for a month, right in the heart of hurricane season. Simpson stressed, however, that she wouldn't wish for a real hurricane to strike during filming; some generally blustery weather and filmmaking techniques can stand in for that.

"It’s really going to be in the editing, and the framing, and the sound," she said.

Simpson, 26, got a degree in film theory from the Sorbonne in Paris and another in filmmaking at a fine arts school in Switzerland. She's made short films that have played in festivals and has worked in editing roles.

For "No Sleep Till," she's drawn together an international crew of friends from the Swiss film school and France, along with some locals she's met since arriving in Florida a few weeks ago. Almost no one is getting paid, but she's buying the Europeans their airline tickets and putting them up in Atlantic Beach homes.

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Actors include a 19-year-old woman she cast after seeing her at the neighborhood Grumpy's Restaurant, as well as a stand-up comedian from New York, a French actress and a real-life storm chaser from Tampa playing one in the film.

"No Sleep Till" has already attracted the support of locals who've offered to be extras, provided locations, housing and parking, and who've helped raise a good chunk of the film's $25,000 Indiegogo target.

City officials, including Mayor Curtis Ford, have offered to help make it easier to film, whether it's helping find locations and temporarily closing streets with the cooperation of police and residents, said Kevin Hogencamp, assistant city manager.

There could be an economic boost from the crew filming in Atlantic Beach, he acknowledged.

“But really, and communicating with the mayor, we just think having this movie filmed in our backyard has the opportunity to increase our sense of community here," Hogencamp said. "A lot of us want to be extras. We’re talking about it. We want to volunteer in some way. It's fun coming together for a common community cause. We recognize that.”

Big changes and generational angst

Simpson said a theme of the film is coming-of-age angst, which these days hits on several fronts, including the climate crisis, which is certainly an element in the approaching hurricane. Everyone at the beach, she notes, has a hurricane story of getting out or staying put.

There's plenty of coming-of-age economic angst, too, in her generation.

“I realize, with my friends, the conversations we have, are always around how are we going to live in this world where housing prices are elevating and salaries aren't? People are more and more vulnerable to being without security," she said.

Then there's the change she, just in her mid-20s, has already seen in the Atlantic Beach of her youth. Her father owns one of those classic old cypress-shingled beach homes along Beach Avenue, but she's noticed that those homes, though so characteristic of the neighborhood, are beginning to get knocked down as they make way for newer, bigger houses.

"All the old wooden houses that really inspired a lot of the scenes that I wrote, in Atlantic Beach they’re vanishing," she said, "and these big-ass houses are developing like mushrooms. I mean, good for them, but I do see a change.”

Simpson wants to capture the cinematic feel of the old place before it was gone, she said, as well as showcase a part of Florida far different from the more familiar glitz and pastels of South Florida.

“It’s not just oh, this dreamy, hot, palm-tree place," she said of this particular part of North Florida. "I don’t know: It’s richer than that. It’s very exotic to European people. I think that’s why a lot of people are interested in this film from Europe. They’re fascinated by Americans, in good and bad ways. Nevertheless, at the end of the day they’re fascinated.”

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Paris filmmaker's film set in Jacksonville Beaches as hurricane looms