SXSW ’26: Charlie Traisman and Katherine Romans Reveal Themselves in Achiever
This interview was originally published on Film Obsessive.
Like many films, the 2026 SXSW-premiering short Achiever began with a kernel of an idea that sounded silly at first, but blossomed into something larger than that initial concept. That kernel was a throwaway comment from director Charlie Traisman to producer and star Katherine Romans.
“Something about the biggest regret Charlie had was all the orgasms they didn’t have on their Lexapro,” laughs Romans.
And thus, Achiever was born. The short film follows Alexa (Romans) and her recently prescribed antidepressants that have gotten in the way of being able to orgasm. She plans to tackle the problem in the same organized manner that she attacks anything in life that plagues her, but she quickly learns that there’s more to sex than getting off.
Achiever is not the first time Traisman and Romans have worked together. In fact, this short film is only one facet of their collaboration. In August 2022, the duo founded Madhouse Films, a production house that describes itself as in pursuit of “understanding what is ‘true.’” In the four years since the founding, the desire to chase true understanding is what still guides their day-to-day lives.
“I think really what we’re getting at is more like finding alternative or varied points of view of a subject,” explains Traisman. “It’s kind of like a prism. We want to reveal the dimensionality of everything we’re exploring. We really like creative work that uncovers something that hasn’t been explored yet or hasn’t revealed itself yet.”
“What we’re building with Madhouse we’re obviously really excited by,” Romans adds. “This is an incredible moment for us because The Planis coming out and so are Manhood and Forbidden Fruits. We had four projects at SXSW, which was overwhelming.”
“When we first imagined what we wanted to do with Madhouse, we were drawn to stuff where you’re like, I haven’t seen this way in yet,” Romans goes on. “If we’re talking about Achiever or our other short from SXSW, Copy, Save, I hadn’t seen anybody look at teens and tech through that door. That’s what we mean and that’s our mandate, if there even is one. Discovering something about what is true, and those different pathways into a conversation.”
Traisman and Romans were quite involved in the production of Achiever, as director and star, but that’s not always the case for films under the Madhouse banner. There are various levels of involvement from the duo depending on each project that comes through the doors.
Charlie Traisman. Courtesy of SXSW
“Some projects have different needs at various points in time. If we love a project and we want to get involved, we’ll figure out what it needs at that exact moment,” Traisman says. “We’re willing to take projects where they’re at. Achiever, specifically, was a passion project of ours where we got to stretch our creative muscles a little bit more. That felt very special and sacred for us to create together.”
“We were a young production company when we jumped on projects like Manhood and Forbidden Fruits,” Romans continues. “It was sort of like, what can we do on this team versus now, when we’re at a place where sometimes we were getting more of the option and the luxury to bring projects over the finish line in a different way.”
“I don’t think we’re ever going to stop working that way, because we’re kind of a unique production company in the sense that we don’t work only one way. We finance, we produce, whatever needs to happen to make the thing happen is how we operate right now,” explains Romans.
What made Achiever a passion project for Romans and Traisman was that it allowed them to reconnect to the beginning of their friendship. The two met over a decade ago as actors, but over the past four years, neither has been able to focus too much on acting. Achiever gave Romans a chance to return in front of the camera and Traisman to take their first seat in the director’s chair.
“We wrote a logline before we had a script, and the logline was, woman goes on Lexapro, only to find out that she can no longer orgasm, and goes to find orgasm by any means necessary,” recalls Romans. “We took that logline line to the writer, Claire McFadden. She took that and made it so much more interesting. Made this whole piece about the main character being a high achiever. The film became a lot about mental health and neuroses. Charlie and I, as people on Lexapro and Prozac, are also navigating our own neuroses along with these funny situations.”
“After producing shorts, also for a while, I think we had really learned to do it well,” adds Traisman. “This was also our opportunity to say we actually know how to execute this really well and with precision. We have such a creative partnership now and Achiever gave us the chance to really lean into that. It was truly just also a blast. There was something about it that felt very carefree and very fun. It was precious, but also not too precious at the same time. I think we took big swings and trusted them.”
When the two talk precision, one of the aspects of the short that comes to mind is the editing by Brenna Power. It’s sharp and decisive without losing the film’s sense of humor. The way Traisman described the shooting experience is the same way one could see the editing at play in the film. Part of what makes Power’s editing so seamless and striking is the fact that this is not the first time they’d worked together.
“I think everyone has to make a bad short. It’s so important. We also learned so much by making other people’s shorts in terms of like, how do we have these conversations to make them better?” remembers Romans. “Charlie and I would be like, do you think the director and the actor had this discussion, is this an edit problem, etc.?”
Credit: Charlie Traisman and Sarah Whelden
“One of the reasons we love Brenna as an editor is because we’d worked on this other project with her, this pilot that we shot over the summer,” explains Romans. “She was on set with the director. When we were running out of time, she was helping the director. Brenna would be like, you should keep this shot and get rid of that one, because in the edit, I think we’re actually gonna go this route. We were so impressed by that.”
“What we were aware of from editing so many films is that we don’t know yet how this is going to fully emotionally land at this part of the movie. We aren’t entirely sure tonally,” Romans goes on. “We have a sense, but we might need to do the bigger version and the smaller version, or we might need to do the funnier version and the more grounded version because we just don’t know yet. I think that if we hadn’t done everything else we’ve done collaboratively together, we couldn’t have had that actor-director relationship.”
“What Brenna and I discussed is how fast it has to go at the top. It’s really just like a relentless pulse, which I think is amplified by our amazing composer Natasha Frank, who did the techno score. We call it sex techno.” laughs Traisman. “There’s a relentlessness in the pacing of it. We wanted to mirror the neuroses and neurotic energy at the very top and then take a real purposeful breath towards the end. I think the story arc was captured by the pace of the editing. In the editing sessions together, it was so interesting to see how the comedy lands with pacing in a cut or a frame. Brenna has excellent instincts around how you land a joke and where do we need to let something rest for a second for us to take in a story moment.”
As Traisman alludes, there’s a tonal shift three-quarters of the way through the film where Alexa comes face to face with Garth (David Brown), who approaches sex entirely differently than she does. It’s a realization that maybe what she was looking for was intimacy, and how that means something different for all of us.
“I’ve always been interested in unexpected connection in terms of two people who you normally wouldn’t think would experience intimacy together, and then finding a pathway to that,” offers Traisman. “I think that’s informed by being a queer person in general. You have to renegotiate your experience with intimacy and attraction a lot.”
“When I was making the film, what opened up to me was the way we negotiate intimacy. What I love, in that final moment with Garth specifically, is him asking and taking some of his power back,” explains Traisman. “I found that to be a really profound moment of negotiation.”
Films like Achiever speak to the growing role of intimacy coordinators in Hollywood. No production is too big or too small to warrant a coordinator to help facilitate a feeling of comfort on set, but Traisman and Romans also explain that the job is much more than that.
“We had the best intimacy coordinator ever. Her name’s Chelsea Pace and she was so integral to the production, because obviously the whole film is a lot of intimacy,” explains Romans. “Not only would she have a big job, but she took such a leadership role. She ultimately has a producing credit on the film, and it is so well-deserved.”
“It’s asking so much for people who are just meeting for the first time to come in and do what they have to do in that film. I can’t imagine how anybody would navigate anything like that without someone like Chelsea, who’s so practiced and experienced and is looking out for the actors between takes, making sure everybody’s comfortable, teaching tricks. Everything she was adding beyond the protection of people was so important,” says Romans.
“Intimacy coordinators are storytellers, too,” emphasizes Traisman. “These intimacy scenes have to reflect this emotional experience and moment. Chelsea is a huge collaborator and, on the spot, comes up with all these options for the director and cinematographer. Like, oh, this doesn’t really work within the frame, we might need to choreograph it this new way because we want the audience to know this is a moment of frustration, we need to see her face. It’s highly creative and so in the moment.”
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