By Noma Faingold. (updated October 10, 2025)

Andrew Durham had been reliably wearing several film industry production hats, but he had never much thought about directing a feature film until good friend Sofia Coppola presented the 2013 book, “Fairyland, a Memoir of My Father,” by Alysia Abbott to him.

Award-winning screenwriter/director Coppola had optioned the property and was a committed producer. She knew the unconventional father/daughter coming-of-age story, set in San Francisco, from the 1970s to the early 1990s, would resonate with Durham’s background, having grown up in the Bay Area during those tumultuous decades.

When Durham’s parents divorced, he and his brother continued to live a typical suburban existence on weekdays with their mother in the Palo Alto family home. His father had come out and moved to San Francisco. Durham would visit him on weekends. “It was so interesting when I read the memoir. I was excited that someone else grew up with a gay dad. We had such parallels. It was very comforting,” he said. “It surprised me that it was so similar to what Alysia was going through as a teenager and later.” At Sundance, straight fathers approached him and said the film would help them understand their daughters better.

Both Abbott, who was studying in France and Durham, who was starting his film career in Los Angeles, returned to San Francisco to take care of their fathers when they got sick, until their deaths in 1992 from AIDS.

“I understood the balancing act of hanging out as a teenager with my friends and going to soccer practice,” Durham, 59, said. He also wrote the script and was a producer on “Fairyland.”

“On the weekends I would go to San Francisco. Sometimes we went to the Russian River (Guerneville), where he had a vacation home. If a friend asked what I had done over the weekend, I was not going to talk about going to a candlelight vigil for Harvey Milk or something like that.”

It took more than eight years to get the indie film, “Fairyland,” made. Set in San Francisco, it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023 to positive audience and critical reaction. Yet, it is just now getting distribution in October, through Lionsgate and WILLA, in a few dozen select U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

What’s so unique about “Fairyland” is that it’s told from Alysia’s point of view, from childhood to young adulthood. Both daughter Alysia (played as a child by Nessa Dougherty and as a teen/college student by Emilia Jones) and father (writer Steve Abbott played by Scoot McNairy) are growing up throughout the film, each navigating daily life, their own independence, as well as taking in what’s going on in the world around them. “They are figuring out who they are as people,” Durham said.

The way the film is shot, over 23 days with a $2 million budget, very intentionally reflects Alysia’s point of view. With young Alysia, 16mm is used to achieve more of a rough, unsettled look.

“We made sure that when she was a kid, the camera was always looking up,” Durham said. “When she became a teenager, we brought the camera to eye level, which is more confrontational and rebellious. The movie matures as Alysia matures. Towards the third act, we used digital. The look is a lot clearer. Alysia is a grownup and the camera is leaning downwards toward Steve. She’s shot above him when he’s sick.”

The feedback Durham received from audiences at Sundance and other festivals reinforced to him that “Fairyland” is a universal story because most people have to face the reality of aging or sick parents. Straight fathers approached him and said the film would help them understand their daughters better. Teenage girls told Durham that they felt seen. “They appreciated the way I depicted them as normal people,” he said.

The Santa Monica resident, who graduated from USC film school and is an accomplished photographer, welcomed returning to the Bay Area for the shoot. Because of budget constraints, they shot most of the interiors in the East Bay, using a large navy mansion on Mare Island in Vallejo. “With a little movie magic, it looked like the apartments in San Francisco,” Durham said.

Exterior locations of apartments on Oak and Page Streets, as well as a building in the Haight Ashbury, stayed true to the memoir. Three scenes in Golden Gate Park were shot in one day, including two using the white Victorian Conservatory of Flowers building as a backdrop. “Something about San Francisco’s architecture is timeless. I wanted to carry that aesthetic into the film,” Durham said.

The fact that more than two years had passed since Sundance before “Fairyland” landed a distribution deal, did not discourage Durham. “The journey now for indie films is a whole different beast, for a million different reasons,” he said. “It was always the goal to get it into theaters. We shot it for the big screen. I still go to the movies once a week.”

“Fairyland” is playing in New York, Los Angeles, and across the U.S. For a complete list theaters, dates and to buy tickets go here.

For Bay Area audiences wanting to see this hometown movie it is playing in San Francisco at the Balboa Theatre (through October 16), the Roxie Theater Oct. 17-23 (Production Designer Olivia Kanz and Costume Designer Maggie Whitaker  in person on 10/17 & 10/22), and currently at Oakland’s Grand Lake, the Fairfax in Marin, and the Rheem Theater in Moraga. 

For updates, follow on Instragram , Facebook, and TikTok.

Check out rave reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic.

Stars Emilia Jones, Scoot McNairy, Cody Fern, and Adam Lambert, alongside director Andrew Durham share how they captured the essence of each real-life person they play in ‘Fairyland.’ Watch here.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Lionsgate

Noma Faingold is a writer and photographer who lives in Noe Valley. A native San Franciscan who grew up in the Sunset District, Faingold is a frequent contributor to the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers, among others. She is obsessed with pop culture and the arts, especially film, theater and fashion. Noma has written about artists Tamara de Łempicka, Isaac Julien, and Wayne Thiebaud, numerous independent filmmakers, and singer/songwriters Janis Joplin, Diane Warren and Linda Smith for EatDrinkFilms.

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