At the Virginia Film Festival Oct. 24, “The Cashier” will put Andy Edmunds, director of the film and longtime director of the Virginia Film Office, in his newly adopted directorial seat. While in his 15-year role at VFO reeling in box-office productions to film in Virginia, Edmunds said he felt an unflagging itch to settle behind the camera himself, which brought “The Cashier” to life in his hometown of Richmond.
The dark comedy marks Edmunds’ debut as a writer and director, following the protagonist Glenda, an understated cashier portrayed by television star Daphne Maxwell Reid in her first leading role in a feature film. Glenda happens upon a $1.6 billion lottery ticket lost by Atlee Elmont, a hapless domestic terrorist played by Michael Marundé, which serves as the impetus for the ensuing narrative.
Maxwell Reid’s character fervently abides by her sense of morality, stirring a whirlwind of humorous conflict as word of the billion-dollar prize spreads to Atlee and his twin brother Aaron Elmont, also played by Marundé. With recent award-winning screenings at the Richmond International, Washington West and Middleburg Film Festivals, the Paramount Theater’s upcoming showing caps off a statewide tour for “The Cashier.”
Edmunds has long been a promoter of film in Virginia, persuading producers to film in the state as a boon to the local economy as VFO director since 2012 and a location manager since 1997. The Richmond native said he began writing the film’s screenplay in 2018 and finished in 2022, then took on the role of director — this time in a cinematic sense — in part due to the artistic inclination that first anchored his career.
“Over 30 years, I've read a lot of screenplays … and worked with some of the greatest filmmakers that we all know,” Edmunds said. “I always kind of had — deep in my soul — some desire to get back to my own creative endeavors.”
In late 2019, Edmunds hoped to first adapt his screenplay into a short film until his efforts were stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic. Edmunds fervently sought to bring his script to life nonetheless, penning 23 drafts of the script after extending it to be feature-length in 2022. Though pieces of the cinematic puzzle remained missing years later, Edmunds said he committed to putting the project together in March 2025.
“I just put my finger on the calendar on December and said, ‘Look, we're going to make this movie [in] December, no matter what … We're going to shoot this thing,’” Edmunds said. “We didn't have all the money together. We didn't have all the cast together. We just had a good script, and I knew we had a great crew.”
As an independently financed project, “The Cashier” forced Edmunds to count his change. The director said he went the distance to secure funds, taking out a mortgage on his home and garnering additional support from friends and various Richmond-based production companies. Edmunds said his experience working in the company of high-flying Hollywood directors such as Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott underscored his understanding of what directing a film entailed despite these obstacles. Still, he noted the novel challenge he faced while truly getting comfortable in the director’s chair.
“Even though this is my directorial debut … I've worked on 80 movies. I've kind of paid attention,” Edmunds said. “But it is complicated that every single question on a set ultimately ends up going to the director … everything goes through your funnel, and then you trust your people down in the food chain.”
Undergirding those newfound executive decisions was his credible crew, all of whom were local to Virginia. Edmunds emphasized the importance of his work creating as much local activity as possible, a principle that extended beyond technical work and into his casting choices.
Maxwell Reid, perhaps best formerly known as Vivian Banks or "Aunt Viv" on the 1990s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” scored the opportunity to play Glenda in part due to her longtime Virginia roots. The film’s lead actress said she has lived in Charlottesville since the 1980s with her Virginian husband Tim Reid — who takes on a minor role in “The Cashier” — and established a relationship with Edmunds during her and her husband’s joint venture operating New Millenium Studios from 1997 to 2015.
Playing her on-screen adversaries, Michael Marundé is similarly locally based, being from Richmond and knowing Edmunds through his roots in the city. Marundé had been close to finishing his Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater at Virginia Commonwealth University just as “The Cashier” was shot in late 2025, with the degree representing a passion-led pivot in a career that previously ranged from active U.S. Military duty to tours in Richmond punk-rock bands. The two actors both identified locally-sourced on-set talent as key to the film’s promise of independent success.
“Doing an independent project is all hands on deck,” Maxwell Reid said. “This one started out with an incredible crew and wonderful actors … I've seen many many many independent films, and seen them in the process of being, and wanting to be, and this one was top notch.”
Similarly, Marundé — whose on-set experience spans coast to coast — explained that the local production process has been a testament to the base of Virginian creatives across the film industry.
“I think the way you do it is you just make it where you are … Why do I need to go [somewhere else] to make anything cool happen?” Marundé said. “Richmond really told me that … we can make our own thing, right here, without having to leave our own backyard.”
Marundé’s and Maxwell Reid’s characters in “The Cashier,” however, hardly reach such consensus. Marundé’s crude, villainous extremist Elmont twins starkly contrast do-gooder Glenda, a selfless figure intent on seeing only the best in others. According to Maxwell Reid, the experience of embodying such an altruist reminded her of who she hoped to be.
“I'd like to believe that, like my mother, who I try to base my whole life on … Glenda is non-judgmental. She will take you as you come, and she will accept you however you come, and I think that's a wonderful ethos to have. And I enjoyed being that for this role, and hopefully in real life,” Maxwell Reid said.
According to Edmunds, the pair’s dichotomy of vulgarity and benevolence intentionally underscores many of the film’s deeper messages. “The Cashier,” in its ludicrousness and sincerity, attempts to answer what makes somebody who they ultimately are. The film examines how external influences mold morality, pulling characters from seemingly opposite circles of ideology and rhetoric and intertwining them. Marundé in particular explained that his nefarious characters made for touching explorations on the theme of redemption, which felt personally resonant given his reinvented career.
The opportunity to present such ideas at VAFF, to Edmunds, marks the culmination of decades worth of ideation and reflection, with a script inspired by personal tenets formed over the course of his life. He said screening his work at VAFF specifically — a near four-decade-long standing hub for eminent cinema in Charlottesville — is a prospect akin to a dream come true.
“The first Virginia Film Festival I've missed in basically 30 years was last year while we were prepping to shoot this movie,” Edmunds said. “Going to screen it at the Virginia Film Festival is just a great poetic circle of life [moment].”
Edmunds, Maxwell Reid and Marundé agreed that they hope their film’s festival run may springboard further theatrical distribution. VAFF will present “The Cashier” 4 p.m. Oct. 24 at the Paramount Theater as part of the Virginia Filmmaking series, cashing in on the bold efforts of Virginia’s strongest in film.
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