Sarah-Megan Allouch
2025
France
French
fiction
14 minutes
Too Many Cowboys
Lio, seven and a half years old, is growing up in a fragile family, a precarious balance that weighs on her mind more and more, drawing her into strange dreams where imagination and reality blur together. When news of an approaching storm eerily mirrors one of her dreams, Lio finds herself alone, confronted with both her fears and the urgency of the situation.
Sarah-Megan Allouch began her career as an actress and voice-over artist before expanding into visual storytelling through various mediums, including photography and filmmaking. She directed her first fiction short film, LIO IN THE STARS, produced by Too Many Cowboys—a project she has been developing for several years in collaboration with co-writer Louise Condemi.
At the same time, she worked in the costume department before transitioning to assistant directing on feature films. This diverse range of experiences has given her a comprehensive understanding of the filmmaking process and a unique perspective on directing.
Since childhood, Sarah-Megan Allouch has always found refuge in imagination. Faced with the tragedies and striking images that have shaped her era, she has sought to transform them into luminous stories. To her, children perceive the world with a clarity that adults often lose. They feel its imbalances and threats with raw intensity—far from irrational.
This is the spirit in which LIO IN THE STARS was born. The film parallels an impending storm with the fragile balance of Lio’s family, which is on the verge of collapse. She must convince her brother and mother before it’s too late. The story is infused with eco-anxiety, a subtle yet very real fear that haunts her nights. Yet, Lio faces it with courage and boundless imagination.
Through LIO IN THE STARS, Sarah-Megan Allouch celebrates simplicity, love, and the touching clumsiness that binds people together. In a world in crisis, she believes that each of us carries the seeds of change in our own way. Like her character, she doesn’t have scientific solutions or political answers, but she is convinced that love and imagination are not naïve ideals—they are essential forces for our survival. The film’s direction reflects this meeting between dream and reality, where Lio’s inner world ultimately spills over into the real one.
LIO IN THE STARS delicately explores how childhood nightmares can unravel unexpectedly profound narratives. Sarah-Megan Allouch brings to life little Lio, a child who absorbs the emotions and tensions of her surroundings like a sensory sponge. Through subtle magical realism, where dreamlike visions poetically mirror the fragile world around her, the film weaves an enchanting connection between imagination and reality.
