Amanda Quaid explores father-daughter relations in 'Toys'

If you watch “Toys,” screening at 11 a.m. Sunday as part of the “Family Affair” program, and realize the director, Amanda Quaid, is the daughter of actor Randy Quaid, you might put two and two together and come to a Freudian conclusion.

But Amanda’s mother, Randy’s ex-wife, might tell you to stop reading into things. And she’s a psychotherapist.

“Toys” is a cute, poignant three-minute stop-action animation film about a father and daughter who live on a farm in the 1930s. The father wanted a boy instead of a girl, and he gives his daughter “boy” toys as she’s growing up, like knives, guns and a baseball bat. She prefers her dolls, but, when her father introduces her to archery, she discovers she’s good at it. So good, she shoots an arrow that whizzes by her father’s head.

That prompts a visual exchange that turns this short into a memorable coming-of-age film. Suddenly, daddy’s little girl has attitude.

“She proves so good at it, she becomes a bit of a threat to him,” Quaid said recently in the ShortFest hospitality room of the Renaissance Resort. “It’s really about this moment that passes between them – when he understands that he’s sort of created a monster with his desire to change her.”

Quaid never actually had that moment. She got the idea for the film from an 87-year-old actress friend, Peggy Pope (best known from the 1980 film, “Nine to Five”). Pope created the story for a poem based on her experiences with her father. She read it to Quaid and Quaid said, “I actually optioned it from her on the spot to make a film.”

How much does it cost to option a poem for a short film? “A smile and a cup of tea,” Quaid said. “No money.”

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Quaid, who grew up in and still lives in New York, is primarily a stage and TV actress. She did a guest starring appearance in a TV show in Los Angeles just before returning for the screening of her film at the Camelot, where she plans to participate in a Q&A.

But “Toys” is the second short film she’s directed and she has an interest in doing more of that.

“As projects come and I’m inspired by them,” she said. “I love directing. But I’m certainly not segue-waying out of acting to directing. I see them as sort of happening at the same time.”

Her first film also was about a parent realizing an offspring was growing up to be his or her own person. Titled, “English,” it was about a Polish immigrant in Queens who sees her 6-year-old son learning English faster than she could.

Quaid can see a thread running between the two films.

“But the connections between them only resonated retrospectively,” she said. “I think there’s a moment when a parent looks at a child and sees him as an individual for the first time. I didn’t even know that’s what was leading me. But, I think it’s a theme I really gravitate to.”

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Quaid says she likes to keep discussions about her father in the press to a minimum to respect his privacy. But, with the parent-child theme coming through her two films, you have to wonder how her relationship with her dad influenced her. Her parents divorced when Amanda was growing up, she said, so she really got to know him on vacations and through his work. But she showed a love for theater in high school and both folks nurtured her talent.

She said her father’s success in films such as “The Last Detail,” “Of Mice and Men” and National Lampoon’s “Vacation” franchise probably inspired her “subliminally” to pursue acting.

“I was certainly supported by both of my parents to do whatever I wanted to do,” she said. “But, probably being around it made it seem like a viable option in a way that a lot of kids may not see it as a viable option.”

The festival's Closing Night awards ceremony begins at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, and then we'll see if "Toys" gets chosen for another screening Monday as part of Best of the Fest.