Watch: Rose McGowan’s Short Film ‘Dawn’ is Gunning for Oscar

Deadline has released an exclusive first clip from Rose McGowan‘s directorial debut, “Dawn.” The short film premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival and stars Tara Barr as a 1960s teenager who invites her school crush (Reiley McClendon) and his friends into her highly sheltered world. Suffice to say, not all goes well when the Kennedy-era teenager gets a chance to live out her teenage dream.

Intriguingly, distributor Black Dog Films has announced that “Dawn” will have an Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles at the Downtown Independent Theater, starting September 19th. Could McGowan possibly win her first Academy Award? Time will tell, but she’s certainly gunning for it. The qualifying run will be accompanied by the first annual “Dawn Festival,” for which McGowan has hand-selected seven films featuring complex female performances to screen throughout the week.

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“I’m curating a festival of directors that have given their lead women a strong voice,” McGowan said. “These stories could have been told with men in the title characters, but these directors showed us what happens when you break stereotypes. They have inspired me as a woman, as a director and as a person.”