In August 2025, Atlanta-based actor Nicholas Molencupp decided he wanted to make a feature film. Now he’s putting the finishing touches on his debut feature as a writer, director and star, a project called “In Between.”

It’s the object of many filmmakers’ fantasies. In less than a year, Molencupp went from table reads to the editing bay on a microbudget independent feature. He gives all the credit to Atlanta.

“Atlanta was so central to making this possible,” Molencupp said.

The “In Between” team describes the romantic dramedy as a “very Atlanta film.” It’s about Nick, a chubby gay man trying to find his way, find love and find himself in the process. According to Molencupp, the character Nick is “too fat for athletic guys, and too thin for the chubby chasers.”

As he moves through the so-called “in between” and learns to love himself, Nick journeys through a roster of Atlanta hotspots like Lore, Boys Next Door Menswear and Midtown Butcher Shoppe in a film described as “Love Simon plus Fleabag.”

Molencupp said he filmed at most places for little to no pay. It’s the type of goodwill he used to get “In Between” made. The type of goodwill he spent years building. Molencupp moved to Atlanta from California in 2022, after he spent a decade doing payroll for film and television.

In Atlanta, he decided to pursue acting full-time. Then the 2023 Writers Guild of America strikes hit. Without any acting work, he decided to create his own content. Molencupp started off writing a short film, but when a mentor told him to start over, he kept writing. Eventually, he finished the script for “In Between.”

The film is based heavily on Molencupp’s actual life and experience. He even plays the lead, named “Nick” after himself. The writer-director said it “gets vulnerable,” with Nick finding love in confident and magnetic Beau, until Beau is ashamed to be seen with him in public.

“It’s me, it’s my story,” Molencupp said.

He hosted a table reading of the script in early 2025, but he didn’t decide to actually make the film until August 2025. From there, he launched into fundraising with grassroots work and Indiegogo campaigns. Molencupp even took flyers to the Atlanta Pride festival in Piedmont Park to get the word out.

“I leaned heavily into my own creative side to just make something for myself, then I started tapping into my network in Atlanta of filmmakers,” Molencupp said.

The director connected with a roster of local actors, producers, and crew members from his network. As he did, the project snowballed. Cameron Moir joined the project as a producer and actor for Beau, and actors like Sachin Bhatt (“Boots,” “Queer as Folk”) and Aaron Goldenberg (“The Hunting Wives,” “The Righteous Gemstones”) signed on.

Molencupp even planned to shoot the film on an iPhone like Sean Baker’s acclaimed 2015 film “Tangerine,” until the director of photography came with a high quality camera and vintage lenses.

“It was a small budget, and then the more people that found out about it, they were like ‘Here, we would like to invest in this,’” Molencupp said. “That was crazy.”

The budget blew past its $20,000 fundraiser goal. Then it surpassed $60,000. It kept snowballing. Businesses agreed to be free shooting locations. Crew members opted to work for lower rates. He ended up with a 26-person cast, an award-winning crew, and a 10-day shooting schedule.

Producer Elle Army credits Molencupp’s Atlanta community. “The fact that he had his whole network and everybody on board,” Army said. “I told people, you couldn’t drop in any city and just make it for what we made it for. You just couldn’t.”

Still, she thinks it comes down to the story. Army said she didn’t have the bandwidth to take on another film — until she read Molencupp’s script. She fell in love with the “universal and personal” story.

“It’s a romantic comedy, but it has so much heart and so much soul that’s really rooted in realness, that anybody could understand,” Army said.

Across an hour-long interview, the director and producer both stressed “In Between’s” authenticity. It’s authentic to Molencupp’s life. He said it took vulnerability to perform, but the lines came easily, and it’s authentic to queer life. They hired “diverse people” on set to show how universal the film is, according to Army.

“We like to say it’s glossy enough to laugh at, real enough to hurt a little,” Molencupp said.

Currently, the film is wrapping up post-production. It’s all surreal for Molencupp, who only decided to make the film a few months ago. Once it is finished, he’ll send out “In Between” to the major and regional festivals. He’s even hoping to host an Atlanta premiere.

“It’s my story, so I love it, but I just want to showcase it to the world,” Molencupp said.

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