Siren’s Cove
Date:
December 28, 2024
Siren’s Cove
Sirens Cove
by Anastasia Babenko
Coast House Materials | United States
Psychological drama, Cringe comedy
Logline
A gas station customer unintentionally becomes a witness to a bizarre scene involving a bikini barista, a police officer, and a measuring tape.
Synopsis
Christian (35) pulls into a gas station to refuel, only to find himself caught in a strange situation. Just as he’s about to leave, he notices Cricket (28), a local bikini barista who runs a drive-thru coffee stand, being inspected by the police. Concerned, Christian pulls up to make sure she’s okay. Driven by politeness and respect, he unwittingly becomes her next customer.
Cricket makes him a coffee while wearing nothing but her bikini, and Christian is left to observe from the window of his car, following the stand’s rule to stay inside. As he lingers, he becomes more and more attracted to this sharp-tongued and captivating woman, finding an unexpected refuge from his own personal drama. The awkward tension between them only grows when it’s time to leave a tip.
Questioning the limits of his empathy and the weight of his own assumptions, Christian is hit with a brutally uncomfortable reality check, forcing him to confront whether a tip can ever just be a tip.
Author’s Note
When I first moved to Seattle, I was introduced to the phenomenon of bikini baristas — a local concept I’d never encountered before. A legal battle over the bikini barista dress code, with absurd clauses like “the top three inches of the legs below the buttocks,” sparked my initial inspiration for this story.
What began as an exploration of body regulations, gender dynamics, and the crisis of masculinity soon evolved into something deeper. I realized this film wasn’t just about gender or sexuality — it’s about miscommunication, societal projections, and the failure to understand “the other.” These themes resonate deeply with my personal experiences. After Russia invaded my home country, Ukraine, I was hit with a wave of pity—well-meaning but ultimately misplaced and triggering.
This led me to explore how we reduce others to stereotypes, boxing them in and projecting our own assumptions onto one another. It became the heart of the film: two characters caught in a psychological ping-pong of misinterpretation and self-doubt.
To capture this disconnection, we’re casting a professional actor for Christian to portray his emotional journey, while for Cricket, we want to work with a real-life bikini barista, whose raw honesty and charisma will infuse the role with an authenticity that can’t be faked.
Given the intimate, even provocative nature of the setting, visually we aim to focus on the ordinary, not the sensational. We’re thrilled to collaborate with a Seattle-based cinematographer Jacob Rosen (Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW), whose compassionate and unexploitative lens will guide us through this unique and awkward journey
Company Profile
Coast House Materials is a multidisciplinary creative studio and artist roster based in Seattle, founded in 2023. Specializing in narrative filmmaking with a distinct artist-forward approach, the company debuted its first project ever, a horror short “Dream Creep” (dir. Carlos A.F. Lopez, 2024) at Sundance 2024. The Oscar-Qualifying short was deemed “The Scariest Short on the Festival Circuit” and is now streaming on Mubi.