Encinitas girl shines in independent film

A young Encinitas girl is making waves on televisions and big screens.

Kathleen Sheehy, 7, started doing commercials for brands such as H&M and BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse last year.

“She has a very outgoing personality, and I thought it might be something fun for her to do because she likes to meet people and talk,” said Kathleen’s mother, Lisa Mouradian. “We met with a local modeling agency, and they said she would be perfect for commercials.”

The second grader at St. James Academy in Solana Beach who enjoys putting on shows for guests in her Encinitas home was selected for an even bigger role last summer, when she became a part of the cast of the independent film “Love All You Have Left.”

The movie — produced by Caroline Amiguet Sivertson and Matt Sivertson, of San Diego — follows a couple who becomes distraught after their young daughter, played by Kathleen, suddenly passes away. One day, the mother goes to investigate noise in her attic and finds a teenage girl who claims to be Anne Frank.

Mouradian said the girl’s death is handled with class and enough ambiguity that the subject wasn’t too hard for Kathleen to tackle.

“They don’t show the footage [of her dying],” Mouradian said. “They just show the little girl going off to school with her backpack and then the parents come home with their funeral clothes on. [Kathleen] knows what happens to her [character] in the movie.”

Because of the emotional aspects and dialogue in the film, the mother said Kathleen will not view the film until she is older.

But for the girl, being a part of the film, despite its darkness, was a treat.

“It was very fun,” she said. “We went to the beach and got ice cream. I loved that I got to meet people and have fun with the other girls.”

The film is currently going through the festival circuit, Mouradian said.

And just because Kathleen is a little too young for the actual film doesn’t mean she can’t be recognized for it. She has participated in question-and-answer panels about the movie at screenings.

At a recent private viewing at San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts, Kathleen dressed in butterfly wings and ran through the aisles when the movie finished to symbolize the child she portrayed, Mouradian said.

“I flew through the crowd,” Kathleen recalled. “I loved it.”

For more information about “Love All You Have Left,” visit www.facebook.com/loveallyouhaveleft.