When reading the description of the Sundance Dramatic Competition Film Selection, “Filly Brown,” it reads like another hip-hop movie on a long list of a growing genre. But directors Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos said their film is so much more than that. At its heart, the film is about family.

“I don’t think this is a hip-hop movie,” Delara said. “It’s a movie about young people. Hip-hop is so ingrained in our culture, it’s hard to talk about young people and what they’re going through without this music.”

“Maybe people view hip-hop movies as a niche, but it’s a part of us,” he added. With what Delara and Olmos called a “shoe-string budget” and filming at break-neck speeds, the two completed their first co-directed feature film.

Delara and Olmos met when the two were working on another film, Bedrooms. Both were contributing directors to the film, and on set is where “Filly Brown” first started taking shape. Delara approached Olmos with a script, what would ultimately be shaped and polished and developed into “Filly Brown.”

“Bedrooms was really sort of trial by fire working creatively,” Olmos said. “We were having creative arguments and learning how to navigate each other. It paved the way for what we did with “‘Filly Brown.'”

“Filly Brown” follows a young hip-hop artist who is living in Los Angeles and is caught between turning her back on her friends for a record label or let a lifetime opportunity that would help her family slip away.

The two directors agree, lead actor Gina Rodriguez is what makes the film work the way it does. Even Olmos’s father and producer of “Filly Brown,” Edward James Olmos, said they would have their hands full trying to cast the right person for the lead role.

And so the hunt began, starting with hip-hop artists.

“We saw some great, great artist, but it wasn’t right,” Olmos said. “We opened the floor to actors, and that’s when Gina came up to the table.”

Rodriguez is a classically trained actor with a background of beat poetry.

“She broke into this free flow rap in the audition,” Olmos said. “That’s when we knew she’d be the one.”

From there, Rodriguez started to train with Silent Giants, the creators of the film’s original music, to hone her musical skills. After more than three months of working in a sound studio, Delara and Olmos managed to fund the rest of their budget and filming began.

the 24th day of filming, the two directors were done and ready to move on to editing.

“We were so limited in resources, with a skeleton of a crew,” Olmos said. “The crew pulled off miracles. We were in the trenches for sure.”

But that didn’t mean the film wasn’t quickly gaining support. The Sundance Film Festival accepted the film, and from there the film has started to generate buzz.

“You get how important Sundance is in landscape in indie cinema,” Delara said, “how they drive interest in that world. That’s what is really exciting, to be a part of that conversation.”

“Filly Brown” is one of the U.S. Dramatic Competition films in the Sundance Film Festival. It will screen:

Saturday, Jan. 21, 8:30 a.m., Egyptian Theatre, PC

Sunday, Jan. 22, 6 p.m., Tower Theatre, SLC

Tuesday, Jan. 24, 12:15 p.m., Eccles Theatre, PC

Friday, Jan. 27, 5:30 p.m., Library Center Theatre, PC