One day, roughly a year ago, she sat down at the computer, opened up a box of Drama Dog screenwriting software and started putting it down on paper:

Letty, a young Latina from Little Village in Chicago ("really screwed up, kids out of wedlock, bad relationship with her mother, no self-esteem") has her kids impounded by the Department of Children and Family Services and can get them back only if she seeks counseling.

Dr. Greene, her psychiatrist, seems to have everything that's missing from Letty's life: A happy marriage, an education, a successful career. Yet Dr. Greene has troubles of her own ("She can't have a child so she's falling apart inside and her unhappiness is affecting her husband, her kids and her mother").

Both women have lost hope.

Fortunately, Dr. Greene's mother, Ruthie, a terminally ill Holocaust survivor, is on the scene to provide perspective and good counsel.

"Despite all the horrible things she has endured in her life, she still finds hope," Goldberg said. "She still finds hope. She appreciates the life she has and she doesn't take life for granted. She's the only one who's really living."

Now what?

Goldberg liked her script, her friends liked her script, she and her husband, surgeon Benjamin Goldberg, were in a position to finance a low-budget production, so she decided to take the next step and turn her screenplay into a film -- with absolutely no idea how difficult making a movie can be.

One year later, Goldberg and her producing partner Diana Mucci-Beauchamp of Highland Park, have "Hopeless" on film and in post-production -- featuring Jessi Perez of Lincolnwood as Letty and Greta DuBofsky of Highland Park as Ruthie, each making her acting debut.

The next step is distribution -- a subject Goldberg is just now beginning to explore.

Around a recent lunch at the Metropolitan Cafe in Highland Park, Goldberg, Mucci-Beauchamp and DeBofsky relived the good old days (three whole months ago) of shooting "Hopeless" and looked forward to the debut of Mucci-Beauchamp's stage comedy "I'm a Female ... Seeking a Male" (co-produced by Goldberg) Jan. 20 in Chicago's Theatre Building.

"Maybe the fact that we never went to film school had something to do with getting it done so quickly," said Mucci-Beauchamp, laughing. "If we had known the extreme complexity of what we were planning, we probably would have hesitated.

"I know Rosie would have gotten it done because she's tenacious; nothing stops her. But we might have been a little more nervous going in. As it was, we just thought, 'We're going to do this,' and we did it -- without considering about how hard it would be."

"This is how little I knew about what I was doing," said Goldberg, also with a laugh. "I wasn't even surprised when we got it done."

If she can do it...

Goldberg credits Mucci-Beauchamp, who she met five years ago through a mutual friend, for inspiring her to get "Hopeless" down on paper.

When the high school English teacher turned high-tech software sales exec was laid off two years ago, she took the imposed down time (if a mother of four can ever be said to have down time) as an opportunity to try her lifelong desire to write.

For the 25th birthday of her sister, who had been tearing her hair over the usual frustrations in the dating arena, Mucci-Beauchamp starting working on an unusual gift: A book to help her understand the way single men think.

Mucci-Beauchamp interviewed 100 bachelors (including Mexican-born Chicago/New York commercial director Julio Dominguez de Los Santos, who would later direct "Hopeless") and came away, much to her surprise, "with a new understanding and appreciation of men overall."

Eventually, she decided to turn the interviews into monologues in a comedy "about sex, love and dating in the new millennium, featuring the true confessions from her interviews in the setting of a neighborhood bar near O'Hare airport. Mucci-Beauchamp's New Horizons Entertainment company is staging the play with Chicago's award-winning Prop Thtr.

"I'm hoping to help bridge the gap between the male and the female spirit," Mucci-Beauchamp said. "So we can all have better relationships."

It's already worked for her sister, who hooked up with one of the Mucci-Beauchamp's interviewees.

Writing from life

"When Diana started writing it was really encouraging for me," said Goldberg, who said she based the character of Letty on a sister who had grown up with her in Pilsen but wound up living a very different sort of life in Texas. "Somehow she got into a horrible life cycle. This was my way of trying to understand what happened to her."

Director De Los Santos agreed to make "Hopeless" as his feature debut for a nominal fee. The substantial cast and crew agreed to work for little or no up-front pay.

Even though the cost increased from an original estimate of $30,000 to $100,000 (with another $40,000 likely to be spent in post-production), Goldberg and her husband, as executive producers, budgeted a 26-day shoot from Aug. 15 to Sept. 14 on high-definition video. Goldberg and Mucci-Beauchamp handled the logistics as producers and also served as caterers, hairdressers, wardrobe assistants and prop managers.

Locations included Manny's delicatessen and the streets of Pilsen in Chicago and Goldberg and Mucci-Beauchamp's homes in Chicago and Highland Park. Cast members came from sources as diverse as a Latino listserv at the University of Illinois in Chicago, the Pilsen YMCA and the Highland Park Senior Center.

Highland Park residents with speaking roles include Apple Tree Theatre performer Susan Adler as the young Ruthie (in Yiddish-speaking flashbacks), Mucci-Beauchamp as Dr. Greene's best friend, Mark Perlman as Mucci-Beauchamp's on-screen husband, Ken Mines as Ruthie's doctor and Mucci-Beauchamp's son Michael, who plays her son on-screen as well.

Chicago pro Mara Monserrat plays psychiatrist Dr. Greene.

DeBofsky had never considered acting -- she was one of the first women in Chicago with a successful career in public relations -- but she was intrigued when Mucci-Beauchamp called her after a recommendation from the Highland Park Senior Center.

One of her friends was concerned, however. She was afraid the production might turn out to be a porno movie.

DeBofsky laughed. "I said, with me in it? Are you crazy?"

After stopping off to audition ("It was on the way to the grocery store so I thought, why not?") she and Mucci-Beauchamp ended in tears after reading a scene.

"That's how we knew she was Ruthie," Goldberg said.

"There was a lot of emotion," said DeBofsky, who added the performance helped her cope with the recent loss of her husband. "Playing Ruthie gave me the opportunity to work out some feelings. I also admired her character. She was an intelligent woman, a loving and caring mother, and she did the best she could to help her daughter live her life."

For Perez, a recent graduate of UIC (Goldberg's alma mater), who now works as a children's legal and medical advocate for a rape crisis center in Chicago, playing Letty was a matter of taking what she had seen in her work to heart.

"Letty was definitely a familiar character," she said. "She's physically abused by her boyfriend and domestic violence is something we deal with every day at the center. I've also seen her situation all my life as a bystander and a friend but I never had to live it.

"It was very intense. I never thought I could slip into a character that way but Rosie wrote a great script and the director helped me stay confident. It was definitely an eye-opening experience."

For more information on "Hopeless" see http://www.whateverfilms.com/. "I'm a Female ... Seeking a Male" opens Jan. 20 and runs through Feb. 27 in the Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont, Chicago. Call (773) 327-5252.