First-time filmmaker Alison Eastwood was understandably more nervous than most daughters when screening her feature Rails and Ties for her dad. He is, after all, the Oscar-winning director and actor, Clint.

After seeing the film, an intimate family drama, the steely-eyed director pronounced that the work was like ‘a chip off the old block.’ To which his grateful daughter replied, ‘more like a shard.’

The younger Eastwood was relaxed and informative at a press conference on Friday morning, joined by her actors Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden and Miles Heizer.

Eastwood was raised as a movie brat on the set of many of her father’s productions, making an impressive acting debut in the 1984 Eastwood film Tightrope when she was 12. Following the dictum of her father, she ‘surrounded herself with good people’ while making Rails and Ties — members of Clint’s crew including DOP Tom Stern and editor Gary D. Roach, her brother Kyle and actors Bacon and Harden.

Both Bacon and Harden were impressed by Eastwood’s direction, which allowed them to deliver natural, honest performances. ‘She’s inherited stuff from her pop,’ observed Harden.

Taking another cue from her father, Eastwood set out to create, ‘a great feeling and tone for the cast and crew… Not to be too cosmic about it, but the camera picks up… on how the [environment is on the] set.’

Rails and Ties is a drama in which Bacon plays a train conductor who accidentally causes the death of a teenaged boy’s mother. Playing the lad is neophyte actor Heizer, who won Eastwood over when he told her confidently that ‘he would do his best’ in every scene of the movie. Bacon enjoyed the script by Micky Levy, which allowed ‘two dysfunctional families’ to help each other.

Eastwood and her leads may differ on their enjoyment of watching the completed Rails and Ties. ‘I don’t go back and watch films,’ claims Harden, despite her many acting triumphs. Neither does Bacon, who compared looking at his old movies to hearing ‘fingernails on a blackboard.’ He likes to watch his completed films once by himself and once with an audience. ‘Then I kiss it goodbye.’

For Eastwood, the response to the film is more important. Speaking again of her father, she said, ‘I want to make him proud.’