Erica Sullivan Launches Her First Post-Grade Film Project About Swimming: “Wet Season”

Erica Sullivan, an Olympic silver medal-winning swimmer for the United States, has turned her focus to a budding film career after retiring from the wet-side of the sport, and has fittingly not strayed far in the topic for her latest project. In her words: Sullivan is “trying to make some cool movies about swim.”

Sullivan has launched an Indie GoGo fundraiser for her short film Wet Season with the goal of raising $15,000 to cover production costs, including training the actors to swim (a famous pitfall of many swimming-related film projects). Other costs include equipment rental, location rental, and festival fees. The goal is to eventually turn it into a full-length film.

• See the IndieGoGo page here.

The film centers around an elite college women’s swim team and tackles themes well-known to athletes: team versus individual identity and competitiveness toxic competitiveness. It also touches on social issues like friendships and quiet queer romance.

“Wet Season is a film that encapsulates the feeling of what it’s like to be on a collegiate swim team,” Sullivan told SwimSwam. “With a mixture of love, passion, jealousy, drive, and a will to win, my goal for the film is to give audiences an entertaining way to depict swimming while accurately showing the part of swimming that people, including myself love, and that’s having a second family.”

“Wet season” is a reference to the opposite of “dry season,” which is the part of the swimming season where athletes are asked to abstain from partying and drinking alcohol.

Sullivan retired from swimming after the 2024 Olympic Trials and moved to Los Angeles at the end of the year where she says that she spends the majority of her workday reading scripts as an intern at MGMT. Entertainment and educating herself on the process of being an effective writer and director.

The entire crew are newly-graduated students who are starting their careers in the entertainment industry.

Donors to the project receive rewards including:

• $10- Name in the credits (applies to all higher tier donations)
• $30- Personal video message from me thanking you for your contribution to the project (applies to all higher tier donations)
• $50- Copy of the first draft script. Spelling errors and all!
• $70- Signed Team USA cap from me
• $100- 30 minute phone zoom call for swimming/ stroke technique analysis

Sullivan, 24, was the silver medalist at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in the 1500 meter freestyle.