Storytelling That Packs a Punch

When Wanda Sykes stepped into her first major dramatic lead in the boxing film Undercard, she did so with a story shaped in part by Dr. Anita Cal, director of Creative Spaces at Cornish College for the Arts. Cal co-wrote the script, bringing a fresh perspective to a genre long dominated by male narratives.  

Cal’s path to screenwriting began while working as a newspaper beat reporter. Exposure to the world of filmmaking through colleagues at the Los Angeles Times sparked her interest in writing for the screen. “I was fascinated,” she recalls, drawn to the possibility of creating fictional stories after years of covering daily news.  
 
Her first foray into screenwriting was for the feature film, Kinfolks (1998), a holiday dramedy centered on family tensions and reconciliation, independently produced and later picked up by Showtime. The experience shaped her understanding of the writing—along with the production and the business sides—for filmmaking. The experience also reinforced a lesson she still carries: Surround yourself with talented, trustworthy collaborators. 
 
That ethos would later shape her connection with director Tamika Miller, whom she met at a wrap party in Los Angeles while working as an associate producer and line producer. When Miller approached her with an early version of Undercard, Cal saw an opportunity to build on the genre she loved while shifting its perspective.  

A longtime fan of boxing films, Cal felt called to the project for its emotional and cultural potential. While titles like Rocky and Million Dollar Baby helped define the genre, she saw an opportunity to center a story rarely told—that of a woman navigating both the physical demands of the sport and the internal battles that come from it.  

“We haven’t seen a story like this from a female boxer and trainer’s point of view,” Cal says. “A woman broken but trying to fix herself—and her relationship with her son.”  

Set against the backdrop of the boxing world, the story centers on the emotional tension between Cheryl “No Mercy” Stewart and her estranged son. “It wasn’t so much about boxing,” Cal reflects, “but the mother and the son.” The film is shaped by love, but complicated by abandonment, anger and the search for accountability and forgiveness.  

Beginning with Miller’s original script, the two reworked the story from the ground up—building out character arcs, refining motivations and deepening the world around them. A pivotal breakthrough came during Cal’s research into Liberty City, where Black artists and athletes were once barred from Miami Beach hotels during the Jim Crow era. That history informed a key scene, using a once-prominent hotel as a metaphor for unrealized potential. 
 
At early screenings and its festival premiere, viewers responded with both tears and applause, ultimately earning Undercard the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Newport Beach Film Festival. The experience reinforced another lesson that Cal holds closely: trust the audience. “Just enjoy the art,” she says. “Trust the audience’s voice.”  

That approach informs her work at Cornish, where she supports students developing their creative practice. Cal emphasizes the importance of collaboration, perseverance and connection, often facilitating what she calls “creative cross-pollination” across disciplines and institutions. 

Success in screenwriting and filmmaking, she notes, depends on both skill and community. “Learn to surround yourself with good, kindhearted people who are also talented,” she says. The artists who succeed, she adds, are those who “endure failures and conquer self-doubt enough to deliver.”  

Currently, Cal is co-writing multiple scripts with three directors while also serving as a judge for the Humanitas Awards, which recognizes screen and teleplays that explore the human condition. As her work on Undercard reflects, her focus remains on character-driven storytelling grounded in the human experience.