NOT INVITED To Be Showcased At SOHO International Film Festival
The short film stars Lindsay-Elizabeth Hand and Cody Lindquist.
Lindsay-Elizabeth Hand and Cody Lindquist are bringing their short film NOT INVITED to the 17th annual SOHO International Film Festival this October, marking the latest chapter in a friendship that began years earlier through an extremely exclusive corner of the New York comedy scene: motherhood.
Hand and Lindquist were both performers at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre when a small group of performers who were also moms formed an unofficial support club affectionately dubbed the 'UCB Hot Moms.'
The group organized playdates, traded advice, and shared the kind of highly specialized information that could only be useful to a comedian with a baby, like where to pump breast milk between shows at UCB. Hand and Lindquist first met at one of the group's playdate meet-ups, where they discovered that they each had a one-year-old son, lived in Hell's Kitchen, and had built their lives around comedy. The moms clicked. So did the boys. Years later, Hand and Lindquist are best friends, creative collaborators and the co-writers and stars of NOT INVITED.
That friendship became the foundation for NOT INVITED, a dark comedy written by Hand and Lindquist and starring the pair as Nadine and Maddy, two devoted followers who discover they have been excluded from a mysterious sacred ritual.
Loyalty, ego, and delusion collide as the women grapple with the horrifying realization that everyone else has been invited to something they haven't. The film takes aim at cult mentality, entitlement, female friendship and the uniquely powerful indignation that comes from discovering there was, in fact, a group chat without you.
Directed by Seth Hagenstein and produced by Hand, NOT INVITED also stars Sean Edward Evans and features an ensemble including Eliza Being, Alexandria Iona, Nicole James, Steph Leschek, Lindsay Milligan, Tulis McCall, Brooke Stone, Tory Stolper and Geraldine Zamora.
The film was produced by Edge In Motion Productions, Bokeh Pictures and Decade Pictures, with cinematography by Ethan Johnson and editing by Kristopher Knight and Nicholas Burgos.
Its selection for the SOHO International Film Festival comes during an eventful year for Hand, who recently returned from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as the winner of OUTLAUGH, a Survivor-inspired live comedy competition.
OUTLAUGH, produced by Jared Laxer, Elle Roch, Emily Nevins, Will Tempfer, and Loïe Plautz, began with Lindsay and 11 other talented comedians - Alex Forstenhausler, Paris Adkins, Chili Davidson, Charlie Berger, Rachel Yu, Elsa Levytsky, Declan Zhang, Christel Bartelse, Camille Theobald, Alex Franklin, and Sam Morrison - competing across six live shows in a comedy endurance game featuring improv and stand-up challenges, immunity, tribal councils, audience advantages, and on-stage eliminations. Its premise asked a simple question: 'Who will have what it takes to Outlaugh the rest?'
For Hand, the Edinburgh victory and NOT INVITED's festival selection represent two sides of the same comedy career: one built live onstage and the other alongside one of the friends she met there.
Hand is a New York-based actor, writer, producer and longtime Upright Citizens Brigade performer whose work spans film, television, digital comedy and live performance. Lindquist is an actor, writer and comedian known within the New York comedy community for her work across television, film and live comedy. Together, the two have spent years performing in the same comedy ecosystem. NOT INVITED marks a chance to bring the shorthand of that real-life friendship to the screen.
And while Hand and Lindquist may have graduated from bonding over one-year-olds, playdates and the logistics of breastfeeding at a comedy theater to writing and starring in films together, the second generation is keeping the partnership alive.
NOT INVITED will screen as an official selection of the 17th annual SOHO International Film Festival, taking place October 7-13, 2026, in New York City.
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