"Where people get off their path is where you start doing stuff you think the industry wants from you. You're shooting yourself in the foot. (When I did that) my movies became less and less original. .They want what you have to say."

That's the advice director-screenwriter Abe Sylvia had for a student writer Monday night at a Film Streams audience talkback after a special screening of his movie "Dirty Girl": Stay true to yourself.

It's clear Sylvia took his own advice. Sylvia, who grew up gay and feeling alienated in Oklahoma during the 1980s, wrote this movie about a closeted innocent named Clarke, growing up alienated in Norman, Okla., in 1987.

An accident of fate teams Clarke with the high school's most rebellious, promiscuous, angry girl, Danielle. The movie is about how the two outcasts hit the road for California, form a friendship and help each other find themselves.

Sylvia had something to say. Something personal.

"We saw the short films he had made, and the minute we saw them we knew we were looking at a talented, original voice," said "Dirty Girl" producer Jana Edelbaum. "We were convinced he could do this magnificently."

Still, he paid a price for originality and staying true to his vision.

"It took seven years to get the movie made," Sylvia told the crowd. "I was lucky to finally meet Jana and people who believed in the movie and wanted to make it the right way, which meant fresh faces in the two leads. Actors who could knock the material out of the park."

Not, in other words, marquee stars who sell tickets but are wrong for the parts. Sylvia chose Brit actress Juno Temple ("Atonement") and virtual unknown Jeremy Dozier as his Danielle and Clarke.

"I know how to make a movie," Sylvia said. "Shooting it was easy. Editing it was easy. Getting somebody to spend the money is the hard part."

It's especially hard for a small, offbeat, human-scale story like "Dirty Girl," which doesn't have explicit sex scenes, car chases, explosions, gore, digital effects or 3-D to help sell it.

On the other hand, it has a great sense of humor, youthful spirit with a raunchy streak, loads of profanity, and a cast of terrific character actors.

That includes Milla Jovovich ("Resident Evil") as Danielle's messed up mother, William Macy ("Fargo") as a devout Mormon who wants to marry mom and adopt Danielle, Mary Steenburgen ("Melvin and Howard") as Clarke's bullied mother and Dwight Yoakam ("Sling Blade") as Clarke's homophobic dad, who wants to ship his son off to military school. Tim McGraw ("The Blind Side") also appears in a role that should be saved as a surprise.

Likewise Omaha's own Nicholas D'Agosto, who plays a hitchhiker Clarke and Danielle pick up on their road trip.

"For me it was something really different, kind of bold," D'Agosto said of his sexually charged role. "Although it's a short part, it's a catalyst for an emotional turn in the film. I think it's a really sweet scene. There are a lot of sweet scenes (in 'Dirty Girl') that end up in these bold shows of affection."

D'Agosto, who filmed his scenes in just two days of the 21-day shoot, echoed Sylvia's advice about being genuine and grounded.

"I'm realizing for the first time, your life goes on while you're trying to pursue this career," he said. "I saw my career as everything. But you have this life, too. Living your life fully, you come to know yourself better. You'll find the place for it."

In other words, life informs art, just as Sylvia's life gave him the idea for "Dirty Girl."

"I wrote the script in 12 weeks as a class project at UCLA film school," he said.

Director-screenwriter Alexander Payne, an Omaha native, spoke to film students while Sylvia was at UCLA. Payne invited the students to call him if they were ever in a situation where they didn't know what to do. Sylvia took him up on the offer.

"We talked for a good long while," Sylvia said. "It was great. As a UCLA grad, he felt my pain."

Sylvia had kind words as well for the way Temple, Dozier and D'Agosto threw themselves into dance numbers, though they're not trained dancers, and for Macy as the first name star attached to the project.

"That's the kind of passion paramount to getting these small indie films made," Sylvia said.

Someone else who has passion for "Dirty Girl" is singer Melissa Manchester, whose hits figure prominently in the movie's tuneful soundtrack. Sylvia couldn't afford the rights to her megahit "Don't Cry Out Loud," which was key to the movie's climactic scene.

"She emailed back in five minutes, said, 'I'll call Carol (Bayer Sager, who wrote the song).' And the next day, we could afford it."

"Dirty Girl" opens Friday at Film Streams. Look for a review in Friday's Living section.