Local filmmaker and musician Zeapoe Matalda grew up in West Fargo where she attended Davies High School. Contributed photo: Jared Eischen
By Lonna Whiting
The heroines in “Pretty: The Musical” don’t wear capes, but if they did?
They’d be pink.
Local filmmaker and musician Zeapoe Matalda’s short film follows the adventures of three female college students who live double lives as spies for a notorious organization called the 246.
“ ‘Pretty: The Musical’ is very much like your classic action hero story with female leads and saving the world before they have to go back to class,” Matalda said.
Yet, underneath that Charlie’s Angels girl-power trope, Matalda is celebrating something else: female empowerment, life as a first-generation Liberian American, creativity.
And in her life beyond the camera, she’s staying refreshingly transparent about life as an independent artist.
“I want to make the idea of being a filmmaker and musician as a career a viable option in the minds of young people and just make it seem possible,” she said. “I feel like for me, I didn’t always feel that way. So I’m always trying to encourage people to not lose that imaginative side of their life and their goals. I try not to make it look glamorous.”
Matalda’s approach is getting noticed across the wider region, too. She received a $25,000 grant from Minnesota State Arts Board to produce “Pretty: The Musical” and she’s also the 2025 recipient of a Lake Region Arts Council Legacy Individual Artist Grant.
Watch the movie trailer: Pretty: The Musical- Promo Video
On top of it all, the artist is gearing up for the international premiere of “Pretty: The Musical” on May 2 at 6:30 p.m. at Concordia College, Hvidsten Music Building. The accompanying music video launches on Matalda’s social media at midnight April 1.
Zeapoe Matalda co-stars in “Pretty: The Musical.” Contributed: XENA Films.
Lessons from Lin
Keeping “Pretty” under wraps all these months has been a bit difficult to do, Matalda said. After all, making a musical is a lofty goal for anyone, let alone this Davies High School Class of 2012 graduate.
But her determination to create a Hollywood-quality short film on a medium-small budget is proof that making movies can be an accessible process.
“I always loved Lin Manuel Miranda’s work,” Matalda, who has a degree in music composition from Seattle Pacific University, said. “Studying his scores has been informing my process for a long time. I’m always trying to do warm, bright things that draw in the entire family. It’s all family-friendly and includes lots of dancing.”
“Pretty: The Musical” is shot with scenes from around the region, including Detroit Lakes, Minn. Contributed/Zeapoe Matalda
Matalda aims to create warm, engaging plotlines that include something for everyone, all while using the resources around her. Of course, on a budget, that means long hours of production, time management, talent recruitment, coordination, filming, editing, and building relationships with other creatives in the region.
“It was a lot of work,” Matalda said. “There were a lot of times I thought, ‘Is this how it’s supposed to work?’ Because we kept hitting a lot of snags, like hiring actors and making sure people showed up in the right place at the right time.”
Matalda and co-stars film a scene at Village Green Golf Course in Moorhead. Contributed: XENA Films
Scenes in “Pretty” will look familiar to many. Matalda took advantage of the public beach area at Detroit Lakes, Minn., to film one scene, while others come from other landmark places across the region: Village Green Golf Course in Moorhead and Trollwood Performing Arts Center, for example.
It’s a long way from Seattle where she lived up until 2020, first studying music composition at Seattle Pacific University, and then working as an arts administrator for Seattle Opera.
Being embedded in a city that embraces the arts more fervently than most in the Midwest, Matalda said she expected resources to be tighter here.
“Here I have to work a little bit harder, meet more people, and find the spaces where we can do production, especially on a budget,” Matalda said.
But once she got going, everything fell into place.
“One place that helped us succeed was working in the Moorhead Public Library. We had all of our rehearsals there and all of our castings there. We had a lot of community support,” she said. “In our credits, you’ll see all of the businesses that supported our process.”
The movie poster for “pretty: The Musical,” set to debut in May at Concordia College.
Building tenacity
Blending her knowledge and academic study of film production and music composition, Matalda also spent the past several months working alongside other emerging local artists as part of Artist of Color Cohort, a community-funded program of The Arts Partnership that’s aimed at giving artists a professional boost through professional mentorship and training.
“It’s kind of exciting to be selected and to participate and meet other artists who are also doing different art and also doing the same thing,” she said. “I’ve met filmmakers through the program, and that has been very exciting, because the more people you know, the easier it is to produce films.”
Time spent with mentors and other emerging local artists gave Matalda the chance to put the finishing touches on “Pretty” while tackling another of her goals, which she said is “building the tenacity to take on the entertainment industry.”
Matalda said her mentor, local filmmaker Oscar DeLeon, was especially valuable in helping her understand what it takes to make it on the commercial side of film production where there’s strict schedules, rules, and protocols to follow at all times.
“Oscar is not just an independent filmmaker. He actually works in the industry, so he has the commercial side of the knowledge and the independent side,” she said. “For me, that’s really helpful, because I don’t know a lot about commercial work, and with Oscar, he just has a wealth of knowledge that I didn’t have.”
“Pretty: The Musical” crew members take a break during a production meeting at Moorhead Library. Contributed: XENA Films.
‘Worth it’
For now, Matalda is right where she wants to be: a good job at Concordia as an arts administrator, a satisfying job as an independent local filmmaker — and a newfound appreciation for her hometown.
Next up for this emerging filmmaker: a feature-length crime drama.
“In 2027, I would like to hopefully self-produce a feature film, and although it doesn’t have a huge budget, we’ll create something good, and that looks really fun,” Matalda said. “I think within the last year and a half, ‘Pretty’ has taken over every aspect of my life, so I’m ready for a break, too.”
She can still speak at length about her passion for bringing creativity into everything she does—even the hard parts. And at the end of the day, Matalda can lay her head on her pillow, ready for tomorrow’s dance.
“Even the stressful parts,” she said. “It’s the journey of being an artist.”
To follow Zeapo Matalda’s work, visit xenafilms.net.
“Pretty: The Musical” is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
