Nominee for Best First Feature Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, 2015

Layla is top of her high school class - and pregnant. Giving into family pressure, Layla decides against an abortion, drops her scholarship to college and moves into her beloved Grandma’s trailer on the family property. She goes to work, to church, to school. She meets a new boy - Aaron - different from everyone else. Just as things seem to be falling into place again, work and stress take their toll. Layla begins to see her environment differently - and begins to find herself.

Petting Zoo is the second collaboration of Micah Magee and Friederike Sophie Steinbeck. The first short Heimkommen, was completed in January 2012, premiered at Festival Premers Plans d'Angers--where it received the Audience Award--and continues to screen successfully at festivals worldwide (SXSW, Filmfest Dresden, Achtung Berlin).

Winner of a screenwriting award from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a production grant from the New York State Council for the Arts.