A movie a former Butler County woman co-wrote and co-directed will have its premiere in September at Venice Critics' Week alongside the Venice International Film Festival.

Celine Held, formerly of Penn Township, also acted in “Topside,” the first feature-length film she and her husband, Logan George, have made.

“It's about a 5-year-old girl and her mother who are in a community that lives in an abandoned subway tunnel in New York City,” said Held. “We filmed in New York City and the tunnel scenes in Rochester, N.Y.”

“Topside” will be shown in the festival's 35th edition of the Critics' Week competition, along with six other movies, as the only selection from the United States.

Held, who also plays the role of the mother in the film, said “Topside” is the first American film selected for Critics' Week in 13 years.

“Our producer submitted it. It was a long shot but we got super lucky,” she said.

The Venice film festival will run from Sept. 2 to the 12.

Venice will be the first major film festival to be staged after the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe and is being viewed as a major testing ground for the industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Held said she and her husband hope to be able to attend the festival in Italy.

“We're hopeful, but we don't know. We will have to wait and see,” she said.

She hopes that audiences will get to see the work of Zhaila Farmer, the 6-year-old girl who plays the role of the daughter in “Topside.”

“The audition was definitely a process,” Held said. “But she's super special, and we became good friends with her and her family.

“We worked with her a whole year before we shot the film,” she said.

Held and George filmed the movie in March and April 2019.

“We rewrote the script to suit her,” Held said of Zhaila. “She was more magic than what we could write down on paper.

“We rewrote sections that felt more true to life. She got to the point that she can forget about acting and so do I. Things become more honest,” she said.

Held and George plan to show “Topside” to the United States with a domestic premiere soon.

The couple have made four short movies together, including “Caroline,” which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

Held said the description of “Caroline” is: “In the middle of a hot Texas summer, plans for a baby sitter fall through and 6-year-old Caroline is left in charge of her two younger siblings.”

“Caroline” was a “proof of concept” movie intended to show potential financiers that the filmmakers could work with child actors.

Still, the short was one of the 10 chosen for consideration for nomination as Best Live Action Short Film for the 91st Academy Awards.

Held, who has lived in New York for about 10 years, graduated from South Butler County elementary and middle schools, Vincentian Academy, and New York University with a degree in drama.

She met her husband at college; they were both drama majors and have done some acting.

Her parents, Belinda and Craig Held, live in Penn Township.

Right now, Held said, she and her husband are planning their next movie.

“We're writing. That's all you can do right now,” she said.