Alexandra Simpson makes her directorial and writing debut with the Venice Critics Week film “No Sleep Till,” a dreamy, visually striking look at the locals in a small Florida beach town threatened by a hurricane. Shot by Sylvain Froidevaux, humidity drips from the screen as teens party and skateboard, and a girl mans a cash register in a souvenir shop that barely draws any customers. There’s an aspiring comedian and his buddy who can’t quite make the transition to the bigger clubs up north, a Zen-like storm chaser, and public pool managers. All the characters also live under the threat of gentrification, which could price them out of their town.

Simpson herself was born and raised in Paris, but spent her summers in the Florida coastal town of Neptune Beach, where most of the film was shot. The film paints a picture of life slowly disappearing in the state.

"When I wanted to show these places specifically, I was very careful in the sense that they were chosen because they were kind of the last vestiges of old Florida. … every time I go back, everything is more and more different. And it's bigger; it's more polished," she says. "And the intention, also with setting this during a hurricane, was to show the fragility of the old, the last, remaining wooden houses. So there was that tension."

But its specificity leads to a universal feeling.