Three years ago, Stefanie Abel Horowitz considered giving up her dream of making it big as an artist.

She left New York City and moved back into her parents' Michigan home at 30, teaching pilates at the Townsend Hotel.

Now the 2004 Birmingham Groves graduate is in contention for an Oscar nomination with her live action short film, "Sometimes, I Think About Dying."

The film, only her second short movie directing effort, has already far exceeded any of her expectations by making it on the Oscar shortlist, which she learned Dec. 16 from an Instagram direct message.

“My old theater partner said, ‘Holy s**t, congrats on the shortlist,’” recalled Abel Horowitz. “I screamed in the car and I called everybody. I called my Mom and I couldn’t get the words out and I called the producer and had to act all cool. And then I switched over to Katy and she was crying, and I said, ‘I know.’”

Katy Wright-Mead co-wrote the adapted screenplay with Abel Horowitz, and the actress also plays Fran, a severely depressed woman, in a 12-minute movie that packs an emotional wallop. Starring opposite Wright-Mead is Jim Sarbh, who plays Robert, Fran’s co-worker who is romantically interested in her.

“Sometimes, I Think About Dying” was originally written as a play by Kevin Armento and Abel Horowitz directed the 2013 stage production in New York City.

Abel Horowitz graduated in 2008 from Emory University in Atlanta, where she studied theater and spent the next eight years in New York City doing off-off Broadway work, but came to a crossroads.

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“I was feeling this is a very hard life, living in the most expensive city in America doing experimental theater is not a way to make money,” she said.

Although she loved her company and the work they made, she wondered if she loved theater enough to always need to work a second job and moved back to Michigan, but the desire to create wouldn't die.

Instead, she shot her first short film, “Up North,” in Oscoda, and a short time later, moved to Los Angeles, where in 2017 she began thinking about making “Sometimes, I Think About Dying” as her second short movie.

Abel Horowitz and crew shot the film over five days in May 2018 in Maine, on a total budget of $17,000, with every location free except for the diner.

While there were many difficult small moments, they are mostly forgotten, except for a scene in which Sarbh, who doesn’t have a driver’s license, was driving an old vehicle with a loud engine in which he couldn’t press the gas pedal and speak at the same time. Abel Horowitz recalls the sound was frustrating as she and crew members were in the back of the truck lying down during the filming of the scene.

In general, she said directing is all decision-making, and the most important decision was just to make the film, which just over a year ago was accepted into the Sundance Film Festival, an Oscar-qualifying festival.

Out of 191 live action short films that qualified for Oscar consideration, “Sometimes I Think About Dying” was one of only 10 that was shortlisted. From Jan. 2-7, voters in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will vote on films to make the final five cut, with nominees announced Jan. 13.

Another round of voting then takes place with winners announced during a broadcast of the 92nd Academy Awards on Feb. 9 from Los Angeles.

Abel Horowitz is hoping “Sometimes, I Think About Dying,” the shortest of the films nominated in the live action short category, is among the final five nominees helped by buzz from those who have viewed it, and resonating with Academy voters as it has the general public.

She made the film as someone who is interested in how people connect and what intimacy is and feels like and how we share with people. This film, she said, is about vulnerability and empathy and being there for each other.

“The universal message about this movie is we are all sad or scared someone won’t love us or something about us makes us wrong or bad,” Abel Horowitz said. “I see from comments that people respond to sharing the feelings that (Fran) has, they want more closeness and more intimacy, more shared experiences and more feeling like you’re not alone… They want a Robert… That is part of the discussion — whatever scale of darkness and sadness you have, someone creating a space for you is a solution to so much of our emotional pain.”

Abel Horowitz isn’t suffering from any depression herself, she said, although she is feeling a bit anxious. When the Jan. 13 announcement comes, one way or another, she will be in Vancouver, shadowing a director for a TV show, and looking forward to continuing creative endeavors and chasing her dream as she encourages others to do the same.

“Don’t give up,” she said. “Do the craziest, dumbest things you can think of, they might just work… It will be very cool if we are nominated and I will be thrilled out of my mind, but if not, this has been the most wonderful ride we could not expect.”

Contact reporter Susan Bromley at sbromley@hometownlife.com or 517-281-2412. Follow her on Twitter @SusanBromley10.