Three years ago, I picked up the Sports Section of the New York Times, intending to brush up on the previous night’s baseball games. Instead, a column about a different sport caught my eye: “Noodling.”

As I read the article, I became fascinated not just this dangerous type of barehanded fishing, but by the Noodlers themselves. The Oklahomans interviewed in the article spoke with great luster about the sport and its importance to their family legacy. Fathers and sons described their first inaugural trips onto the river and the fear and pride they felt upon catching their first flathead catfish.

I was captivated by this world, which though a part of my country, was so foreign from my own. I began to imagine what it would be like to be the daughter of a Noodler—to spend my weekends with my dad out on the Washita River wrangling a catfish—or to be the one diving into the river myself.

As a young woman from New York who now resides in Los Angeles, I’ve had the privilege of living in our nation’s two largest metropolises. But I’ve always been fascinated by what is in the middle: the American heartland. Enchanted by this mysterious sport and the community of people involved in it, I began to write the script that eventually became this thesis project, NOODLING.

I have been told that my story is a fantasy: after all, it is quite difficult for a young girl to noodle a catfish nearly her size. But for me, the real fantasy of the story is that a Jewish boy from New York and a girl from Oklahoma could become friends—and that they and their families could easily accept each other, despite their disparate backgrounds. In my story, the bond between the characters stems from the choice to be fascinated by difference and not afraid of it.

The film is not just about connection across cultures. In the story, Jenna, the protagonist, reconnects with her father while on their Noodling adventure and begins to accept the new woman in his life, Dee Dee. And finally, Jenna learns to connect with herself: in discovering her talent for Noodling, Jenna comes to terms with an important part of her identity while learning to accept the tragedies that have befallen her life.

NOODLING, the film, is about these ideas of connection and acceptance—across cultures, within families, and finally, within ourselves.