INTERVIEWS WITH WRITERS & FILMMAKERS Archives

Category: INTERVIEWS WITH WRITERS & FILMMAKERS (page 1 of 4)

Susan’s Interview with Oscar-Nominated ‘Nickel Boys’ Writer and Director RaMell Ross and Editor Nicholas Monsour

December 13, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

Susan’s Interview for Script Magazine

RaMell Ross and Nicholas Monsour delve into their collaboration, discuss the film’s nontraditional structure, the unconventional screenwriting process, point-of-view, and so much more.

When covering the 2024 New York Film Festival for this publication I highlighted Nickel Boys, and since then I was eager to chat with RaMell Ross one-on-one. Our conversation did not disappoint and in fact, the bonus for this interview was speaking with Ross together with his editor Nicholas Monsour. We delved into their collaboration, discussed the film’s nontraditional structure, the unconventional screenwriting process, point-of-view, and so much more.

Directed by photographer and Oscar-nominated documentarian (Hale County This Morning, This Evening ), RaMell Ross, and co-written by Ross and Joslyn Barnes, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys chronicles the powerful friendship between two Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida. Whitehead’s book is inspired by the Dozier School, a Florida reformatory in business for over a century with a brutal history in the Jim Crow South. After it closed, authorities discovered 100 unmarked graves of boys, mostly Black youths, subject to horrific treatment.

[L-R] Ethan Herisse stars as Elwood and Brandon Wilson as Turner in director RaMell Ross’s NICKEL BOYS (2024).Courtesy Orion Pictures

Kouguell: First, congratulations to you both. To date, Nickel Boys is on many top ten lists, and garnering many nominations and awards. RaMell, you just received Best Director at the Gothams and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, and the Spotlight Award at the African American African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA), among other accolades.

Was this the first time that you two have worked together?

ROSS: Yes it was. Nick came highly recommended. After working with him, I definitely understand why.

KOUGUELL: What’s your collaboration process like?

ROSS: It’s a lot of asking Nick to do things that he thinks are good ideas. Follow the script as best as possible and if something’s not working, to make adjustments, but kind of simultaneously ask him to adapt the sort of Hale County aesthetic within the context of the script we had.

It’s very much a process of one foot forward in conversation, two feet back in practice, and then five feet forward in practice, and then two feet back in conversation. It’s almost like trying to walk in quicksand and in a direction you don’t quite know you’re going, but you know that if you stay moving long enough, you know there’s something in that process that could be generative.

MONSOUR: I love all these metaphors because I think the more we talk about the movie and think about it retrospectively it does seem like whatever metaphor you use, there’s this thing where you keep moving from one space to its kind of opposite or reciprocal space. When it’s on a big enough scale, you have to figure out how to take it out of your emotional, intuitive space, and think about it, and talk about it, map it out, and then you can take it back into your kind of really intimate, intuitive space.

I just love the challenge. My favorite part of editing is trying to understand someone else as an artist, their sensibilities and aesthetic as best as I can to sort of nudge it in the right direction rather than work at cross purposes.

KOUGUELL: Nick, your background is also as a writer and filmmaker, and you’ve done video installations and sculptures.

MONSOUR: The scale of this project is enormous, considering how much it rests on artistic impulse. I’ve never been anywhere close to that. I’ve worked on other projects that have shades of that, but this did feel gratifying. I got to actually access some of the deeper, more inspirational kinds of things that I was interested in film in the first place on this project.

KOUGUELL: RaMell, tell me about the adaptation process from Whitehead’s novel to the screen. You co-wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes.

ROSS: The writing process was fun; that’s where the majority of the concepts became really manifest and organized and what we wanted to get towards. It’s great to work with someone like Joslyn, who is brilliant and genuinely kind, well-read and as well-versed as Nick. Joslyn is like her own version of a Wikipedia, has read a bunch, and has a global sensibility.

Starting with images, we made a treatment as an edit, as the first process. Going from images to script was a joy with her because we were able to work with the density of what it means to look and see, and then retroactively go to language.

I think normally in the filmmaking process, it’s a kind of an imagination script, and then you go to images, and that reversed order allows for the language to be more in service to the image, as opposed to the image being in service to the language. Basically, we wrote this script visually.

KOUGUELL: POV is a vital element of the film.

ROSS: The idea of point of view is not radical to me. It’s just the way that human beings see the world. To me, it is a more natural camera use than third person. And that’s not scripting, that’s not the script, but just to show you the way.

Brandon Wilson stars as Turner in director RaMell Ross’s NICKEL BOYS (2024).Courtesy Orion Pictures

KOUGUELL: The film challenges the viewer where and how to look and takes us inside the characters; we see what they see. It did not feel gimmicky that the actors were wearing the cameras; it served the sensibility of the film.

ROSS: There are ways to edit even the dialogue scenes that would make the POV feel gimmicky. It’s another place to give hats off to Nick, because he’s deeply fluent in the traditional and conventional languages of cinema in general, and the editing structures.

We could rely on Nick to find ways to make a scene feel like its POV and also give the audience what it wants, but also maintain the truth of what the intention of being in their perspectives are.

MONSOUR: I just love hearing how you describe this process and what you were saying about going from working from the image to sort of inverting that common paradigm. You never quite know if you’re seeing it the same way as someone else.

I didn’t have to start totally from scratch, but I still had miles to go in terms of learning when, where and how you, RaMell, wanted to sort of dial-up, calling attention to a shift in perspective. The material allowed that because of the way you captured it in this very visceral, raw way. It had this fundamental integrity in the image. It really felt like we got to dial up or down or accentuate in almost kind of a musical way.

I know you said, Susan, it challenges the viewer, but I also think it sometimes invites the viewer, sometimes it challenges the viewer. We got to mess with that. That was really exciting; you just use your own intuition when something is feeling like RaMell was saying, not quite right by convention or what an expectation is. But that doesn’t mean you don’t do it. Like RaMell said, he and Joslyn are working from this kind of global perspective on cinema language, It’s not like there’s one set of rules for this stuff.

ROSS: Joslyn was with us in the edit room most of the time. It was good to have a brain trust of three because quite often it’s like Joslyn and I would feel one way, Nick feels one way. Nick and Joslyn feel one way. I feel one way, and so on. It actually forces the other person to not push so hard and to be like, well, both of them think that, I guess we’ll see where that goes, and that’s a really good tension to have.

KOUGUELL: We’ve been discussing structure. I recently watched Hale County, which is phenomenal. With both Hale County and Nickel Boys, you are successfully challenging the traditional narrative structure in film. As the viewer, it gave me enough room to breathe and impose my own ideas and insights onto the characters and stories. How did you decide on the structure for Nickel Boys?

ROSS: When editing Hale County I wondered how approximate you can get to consciousness with a film and with the edit. There’s something about the images that exist and also human life in that there’s something constant.

Can you make a film that feels like every moment you’re walking around a corner and you don’t know what image, what you’re going to encounter next, but you’re down for the walk, and you love it when you turn to it. There’s something about that surprise that feels very sensory and very human real life, and not going for realism. I don’t even think reality is real based in the way that fantasy and fiction are incorporated in the meaning-making processes across cultures.

With Hale County, the film is made up of five visual movements. It’s edited from sunup to sundown. There are 12 days over the course of the film. There’s these really stringent rules that force you to make decisions that produce a kind of new meaning. I knew in Nickel Boys that I wanted it to feel in the same way like Hale County – this sort of musical, almost consciousness-oriented thing; it almost feels like it’s evolving. It’s like making itself or it’s thinking itself. It’s in dialogue with itself. But it’s not to the point where it seems navel-gazing, or it seems like everything is an inflection point, like it wants to be a conscious thing, but it doesn’t want to collapse on itself.

KOUGUELL: You referenced how the inclusion of archival footage further enhanced the storytelling process; it was your way of depicting history – replacing or reproducing an archive that doesn’t exist. You worked with archival producer Allison Brandin.

ROSS: It’s really interesting because I had these ideas of how I want to film and edit, based on the archival images that our amazing archivist Allison Brandin and her team found.

We’re never cutting forward in a scene. We’re never cutting in. Jomo Fray, our great DP, and I came up with this thing called a thrown gaze, which is like the macro shots that allow you to be hyper-attentive to these emotional moments, which allows us to jump time and maybe cut in. It was kind of a secret breakthrough in my openness to the way that the film could be edited because it worked so well. It opened up another language for us to play with eventually. Nick and I didn’t have much time to talk because production was so crazy.

MONSOUR: It takes a lot of confidence to make it through the harrowing process of production and see stuff that you were not imagining. It just might be my Marxist bias, but there’s a dialectical thing that’s going on. Partially, it’s the subject on the one hand, and then the society they’re in on the other, and then other times, it’s the music and the image, and it’s like they’re almost never in the same emotional register.

There’s always this spread that sometimes we focus on, and I feel that structurally, emotionally. When you break it into themes, it does work in this kind of movement of gulfs; sort of dialectically opposed themes or complimentary themes.

KOUGUELL: As a classically trained musician, to me, it felt similar to a symphony or chamber piece, with the different movements, and these movements informed the pacing and the rhythm of the film.

ROSS: I’m so glad you said movements. Hale County has five visual movements. In Nickel Boys, the first conception in the writing process was 17 movements. All of them had scenes at the end of them. Each of the scenes have poetic resonances and their plurality, etc., in terms of it being like some sort of ebb and flow of images. Of course, over the process, they’re like, yeah, we can make that film, but it’s going to cost $116 billion that’s all. [Laughter] So eventually it gets chopped down, and it kind of lost the 17 movement structure, but we were able to get into the movements in the edit that are just a lot smaller, but still have at least some sort of ephemeral emotional impact that is equal to the original spirit.

KOUGUELL: The film addresses a dark history and the erasure of history in a way that’s accessible and not pandering to the audience.

MONSOUR: I don’t have these experiences of those characters and of the other people in this film, in my body, the way they do, or in my family. I watched very closely how RaMell and the filmmakers and the actors and everybody were handling certain parts of the history.

That was where I found the book useful. We’re not making that book exactly or making this script in this movie, and they’re different, but it did help me. Anything I could absorb, because that reflection of this history was useful for me. I don’t have it in my every day, in my day-to-day experience in the same way as the characters in the film.

Nickel Boys, key art poster — Amazon MGM Studios

ROSS: I think of this film now as an experiential monument, in the sense that it, if we think about the source material in the Dozier School for Boys, it allows you to have an experience of history that’s so strongly experienced-based that you take it into your body, in the way in which the camera goes into the body of the boys. That’s not a history that someone can bury. It’s an interesting way to deal with the complexity of the past where it’s not a physical thing.

I wrote an essay, and one of the first lines is: ‘Human beings are the real documents of civilization.’ It’s like taking society into us so that we are experiencing it in the way in which they did to therefore pass it on in other art pieces.

Nickel Boys opens in Theaters on December 13, 2024.

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Susan Kouguell Interview with ‘WICKED’ Writer Winnie Holzman

December 3, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

Wicked writer Winnie Holzman talks about the genesis of the stage play to the screen and then adapting it from one movie to two, and the importance of collaboration for Script Magazine.

It was a joy to speak with award-winning Wicked writer Winnie Holzman about the genesis of the stage play to the screen and then adapting it from one movie to two, and the importance of collaboration.

Ms. Holzman generously shared insights and behind-the-scenes anecdotes that were inspiring, not to mention, fun. As I revealed to Ms. Holzman, I had just attended the movie screening and I had seen the play twice on Broadway with my daughter when she was young, thus adding more stories to our delightful discussion. It is no secret, Winnie Holzman is passionate about Wicked.

Winnie Holzman is the writer (with composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz) of the musical Wicked, for which she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical and was nominated for the Tony Award. Winnie attended the NYU Musical Theatre Program, where she studied with Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim. TV credits include Thirtysomething, Once and Again, Huge (collaborating with her daughter, Savannah Dooley) and Roadies (with Cameron Crowe). Her play Choice was recently produced at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. With her husband, actor Paul Dooley, she wrote Post-its: (Notes on a Marriage) and Assisted Living. Winnie is currently at work on a new drama series for HBO, which will reunite her with the star of the show she created, My So-Called Life , Claire Danes.

[L-R] Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda in Wicked (2024).Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Kouguell: You wrote the book for the 2003 Stephen Schwartz Broadway musical Wicked, which was inspired by the Gregory Maguire novel by the same name. How did this evolve?

Holzman: We took the brilliant idea of his novel, which was that you don’t know the true story of the Wicked Witch or her real name or what really happened, and it is from her point of view. That was a genius idea. As soon as we started working together we felt the need to create our own plot that used elements of his novel and luckily he trusted us and gave us permission. He was willing to let us take liberties and we did. One of the big things in the novel was that the two young women were college roommates, and the idea of who was the good witch. That to us was gold. We let that friendship storyline inspire us.

Kouguell: Tell me about the adaptation process of the novel and how you collaborated with Stephen Schwartz on the Broadway project.

Holzman: The friendship idea grew out of an early presentation of a table read. We only had a first act, which was as long as the show is now. We had a lot of trusted people in the audience, and it was clear that when the two characters, Elphaba and Glinda were together, it worked best rather than if just one was on stage.

There were so many conscious and unconscious ingredients. The writing process has a mysterious quality and who really knows how that happens? It started to become clear to us to lean into the friendship and the life-changing aspect for both women and how they were going to have this effect on each other’s lives. And, the idea of ‘hate at first sight’. What happens sometimes when you hate at first sight is that you’re having an intense reaction that’s furled with something deep within that person and to take that and find that moment, where the two of them see each other for the first time.

Kouguell: Let’s talk about the adaptation process from the stage to the film.

Holzman: There’s an alchemy when Stephen Schwartz and I work together. Stephen and I wanted a movie that we really loved and felt our fans would enjoy. All that mattered was getting it right. Stephen was always intensively and intently involved with the screenplay, and then the two scripts when we decided to make it into two movies. He was all over the movies with feedback and ideas for every scene. Director Jon M. Chu put his stamp on it completely and in the writing for it. He was always right there and hugely helpful.

I approached writing the script as if I was coming in fresh, as if I wasn’t the writer of the book of the staged musical Wicked. It was my job to explore. I opened my mind to other parts of the story. I had gone down a lot of different roads, I experimented and was open to a lot of ideas.

Interview with ‘Wicked’ Editor Myron Kerstein

Kouguell: How did the script evolve from one movie to two movies?

Holzman: For years I was writing it as one movie. One of the first things that happened when Jon Chu came in, was this idea for two films. The idea was floated before, but we weren’t ready. We trusted Jon. We came to understand that the first movie is Elphaba’s trajectory with Glinda being part of that, and the second movie is Glinda’s trajectory to become the person she was destined to become – Glinda the good, and how she becomes that.

With producer Marc Platt we did not just open up the book to be cinematic, we wanted it to be even more emotional. We wanted to show more nuance between the two girls and take our time, and importantly, Stephen had an idea for two new songs that come in the second movie.

It was exciting. We wanted this balance between being true to the play, evoking the play, and staying true to the play and having the freedom to go deeper and show things you can’t show on stage. In the end, it became a very organic decision: if it’s two movies we’ll have room for all of it. That freed me as well.

Kouguell: You mentioned that Jon Chu tapped into important ideas you and Stephen had for the play that you were now able to bring to the screen.

Holzman: It was almost like traveling back in time. Jon Chu asked about every beat of our show. He’s a wonderful listener and person, and a big part of this is that he loves the show. He’s a genuine fan. He asked, what were you thinking about when you were creating this, with every beat, every scene?

With the song “One Short Day”, we were starting to get this image of two young women, finding this exciting place, this is my destiny, that was the whole idea of the song. If you only have one day in Emerald City, that was something we thought about years ago as an image. Looking at the language for that number and describing it to Jon, memories came back and things landed in the movie.

It was the same as the little girls in the movie. I always wanted to have a little green girl in the show, and I pictured her but it was not practical in a musical. Another example are the animals on stage. We could have a goat professor but it didn’t make sense to have more animals as characters on stage; there wasn’t room. I always felt that to help understand the story we had to go back to Gregory’s novel. In the novel, the animals are being treated as outcasts and persecuted, it’s such a salient part of the novel.

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in Wicked (2024).Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Kouguell: We’ve been talking about the Grimmerie, the ancient book of spells that Elphaba uses, and how that further evolved from the stage to the screen. (Spoiler alerts!)

Holzman: Part of the job of adapting the stage play was to go into more depth about story points, and one of these points was how to set up the background and importance of the Grimmerie. I had many drafts of setting this up but none of it ended up working. We didn’t want it to be fluffy, and we wanted to make it a piece of propaganda. With that in mind, I wrote a little playlet that they perform in Emerald City. Stephen then suggested it be musicalized and become a musical interlude and at this point, Jon Chu says these women are the ones who could read the book and instead of an earlier idea that was rejected that Kristin Chenoweth appears as Glinda’s mother, Kristin and Idina Menzel would be the wise women.

Kouguell: Dana Fox was brought onto the project later on as a co-writer. How did that come about?

Holzman: Universal, Mark Platt and Jon Chu had worked with Dana. Bringing Dana on had a lot to do with the time element to make sure we could get it done on schedule. We were adapting that script and adapting the Broadway show, which was always there as source material. We were also inventing new things; Jon Chu brought so much invention, vision and exciting visuals, and exciting ways of approaching the material. Jon and Dana Fox posed good questions. It was an intensive collaboration and Dana was good to work with. When a director says I’m looking at a huge task ahead of me and this is what I need to accomplish, you work for the greater good and that’s part of making something together and embracing it.

Kouguell: We’ve been chatting about how we each began our writing careers writing poetry and how that’s influenced our respective work.

Holzman: When I started writing, I began with poetry and then I was writing comedy sketches and songs and then I got into musical theater. The link to me was poetry writing. There’s a definite connection. It is all about word choice, brevity, saying a few words and that distillation – and that’s screenwriting.

Wicked is out now exclusively in Theaters.

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Susan Kouguell Interviews ‘Leap of Faith’ Director Nicholas Ma for Script Magazine

November 11, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

Filmmaker Nicholas Ma discusses the process behind making the documentary, from his collaboration with Morgan Neville, the writing process in editing, and discovering the through-line to tackling tough subjects with the pastors, and more.

Susan Kouguell for Script Magazine

I had the pleasure to speak with award-winning director Nicholas Ma about his new documentary Leap of Faith . This poignant film follows 12 diverse Christian pastors in Grand Rapids, Michigan of varying theological, racial and political identities and ideologies. Brought together by Michael Gulker of The Colossian Forum, the pastors struggle with some of today’s most contentious issues. The divisions between them become apparent and test both their common belief in the universal importance of love and kindness and the bonds they build over the course of a year.

Nicholas Ma is an award-winning director, writer and producer based in Brooklyn. Ma produced the WNBA documentary Unfinished Business (directed by Alison Klayman), which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. His feature directorial debut, Mabel (San Francisco International Film Festival, 2024), which he co-wrote with Joy Goodwin, was awarded the Sloan Prize.

Nicholas has been a DOC NYC fellow and Film Independent Fellow.

Director Nicholas Ma and film participants.Photo by Moguel Photography/ Courtesy Picturehouse

Kouguell: Leap of Faith is about faith but it’s universal. It’s not about one particular religion. The seed of this project started with the 2020, Wall Street Journal written by Janet Adamy, which introduced you and Morgan Neville to the Reverend Michael Gulker, a Mennonite minister based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Ma: Something you just said struck me. The film is about faith but it’s universal and I completely agree. Morgan Neville and I made a film together Won’t You Be My Neighbor? about Fred Rogers and that movie was universal but also about faith. I think there’s a way we think of faith as something that narrows us and says we’re part of a smaller group, as opposed to something that broadens us.

That’s what was so interesting about the WSJ article, Michael Gulker was saying we all have specific opinions that sometimes contradict each other but what if there was a way of that being true and also our being in community together. There was this interaction between faith and universality, which I think is countercultural in the humanist community and the faith community.

Kouguell: Talk about your collaboration with Morgan Neville in this film.

Ma: Morgan is one of those filmmakers who has a capacious understanding of the form of documentary, he’s like working with a master chef. He’s a wonderful mentor. Morgan was so helpful with his farsightedness to bring everything to life, such as the direct-to-camera conversations that have a special continuity to them. Instead of being prescriptive, he would offer suggestions, such as ‘Here’s what I think you’re trying to do and here’s how we can make it better’.

It was a curious process for him too. He’s such a prolific director and it’s been a long time since he’s worked in this vérité space and it was energizing for him too.

Kouguell: Did you work from a script?

Ma: Tamara Maloney is my editor; she’s such a brilliant human, editor and writer and I’m so grateful for her. There is almost a suspicion: what does it mean to write for a documentary? There is no narration in this film. If you’re trying to reveal the truth, to distill the truth of something that occurs over more than a year into 90 minutes, there’s a part of that that immediately requires a kind of writing, and with this film, even more so.

Nicholas Ma, Producer, Writer, and Director of LEAP OF FAITH (2024).Courtesy Picturehouse

Often in documentaries you can find specific moments, for example: let’s take a two-minute chunk out of this scene and that’s really it. Whereas here, it was actually about distilling a conversation that happened over a course of 90 minutes into a scene that is three minutes long. That requires looking at each conversation, and asking, how are we layering this to find the through-line into three minutes, and then do that repeatedly with each conversation.

We had to work so much from the transcript in order to see what is the broader argument made here and how do we do justice to that broader argument into something that doesn’t feel like shorthand, which I think is gesturing at an argument that you already know or feels fragmentary. Figuring that out was really challenging.

What we discovered was if you’re going to do something that has such complicated and contentious ideas at its core, you have to do justice to that argument but you also have to give enough space on either side of it in order to digest it. That was a huge part of the writing process as well.

Kouguell: That space was indeed there to give the viewer time to consider and digest. It was also evident that you did not have an agenda as filmmakers. In the film, you tackle tough subjects, including sexuality, gay marriage, policing, and racism. I imagine some of the pastors might have been reluctant to share their thoughts for fear of consequences from their parishioners. There’s a lot at stake here. Talk about building trust with the pastors.

Ma: The pastors all knew how to not say something if they didn’t want to. They’re very practiced at it. The leap of faith for them at that moment was to choose to say something they didn’t know how to say. How do you say that thing that you don’t know how to say?

I think what allowed us to really be vulnerable was having a shared question. The question wasn’t, ‘How are we going to resolve our differences about sexuality’, the question was, to put it into universal terms, ‘Can we all belong to each other or are some differences too great?’ What made it possible is that it’s possible for either answer to be true. It’s not like I needed the answer to be one way or they needed the answer to be another way. It was an exploration. It allowed us to say, there can’t be an agenda here because we don’t know the answer. It’s up to us to choose what the answer is.

That’s also what led to all the surprises in the film. Everyone was making these decisions as they went along, ‘Do I belong to you, do I want to try?’ You see that kind of fumbling that we’re so afraid of in this world. We feel like we have to get the right words, the right engagement or it’s better not to do it all. They definitely said we need to be careful but also, what does that mean and what are the consequences of doing that. It doesn’t always look pretty.

[L-R] Pastor Line Exercise; Artie Lindsay, Dr. James Stokes, Joan VanDessel, Ashlee Eiland, Tierra Marshall, Ben Kampmeier, Kim DeLong, Chase Stancle, Troy Hatfield, Andrew Vanover, Molly Bosscher and Cornelius Ting, LEAP OF FAITH (2024).

Courtesy Picturehouse

Kouguell: The line exercise the pastors do requires them to respond to questions only by stepping forward or backward, is a critical dramatic moment in the film.

Ma: Yes. They have to walk towards or back to each other. The movement is physically happening and the question is, can it happen less literally too.

Kouguell: Your father, the world-renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma has performed at various events in support of this film, as well as appearing with you and Morgan on many broadcast interviews. How is it to be working together in this way?

Ma: We share a common yearning, a belief that we want the world to feel more whole and want to be part of that. I think the film brought us closer. He’s a spirit animal for our project.

I think about the experience of sitting in a concert hall, listening to him play and you look around and see people who have been emotionally moved, and you also know that you don’t know who any of them are, and none of them know who you are, and you may believe all sorts of different things but you have been moved by the same experience. It’s what I hope for with a movie like this. It’s going to challenge you more than a piece of music because you do hear opinions and see people act in ways you do or don’t agree with, but my hope is that at the end of it, you watch it with someone you don’t know and you look around and ask what could that mean as possible?

Leap of Faith is now out in selected theaters across the country.

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Interview with Constance Tsang, Writer and Director of ‘Blue Sun Palace’

October 15, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

Susan Kouguell speaks with writer-director Constance Tsang about her poignant first feature film ‘Blue Sun Palace’ premiering at the Cannes Film Festival for Script Magazine.

As I watch Blue Sun Palace now, I have come to terms of what it means to me – a letter to the ghosts of childhood, to my parents who came to America with one dream and settled for another, to my father who I now understand, and to myself as I come to terms with redefining loss in my life.

– Constance Tsang

It was a pleasure to speak with Constance Tsang about her poignant first feature film Blue Sun Palace, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival’s Semaine de la Critique; it is the only US film selected.

Tsang, a Chinese American writer, director, and educator based in New York, received an MFA in Screenwriting and Directing from Columbia University. Her award-winning short film BEAU is a Vimeo Staff Pick and her previous short film, CARNIVORE, was a 2018 AT&T Hello Lab project. Her work is supported by Starlight Stars Collective and Tribeca Film.

About Blue Sun Palace: Within the confines of a massage parlor in Flushing, Queens, Amy and Didi navigate romance, happiness, and the obligations of family thousands of miles from home. Despite the physical and emotional toll their work demands, the women have fortified an impenetrable sisterhood, which tragically collapses when disaster strikes on Lunar New Year.

Still from Blue Sun Palace (2024).Courtesy A Big Buddha Pictures & Field Trip Media Production

Kouguell: Let’s begin with talking about your writing process.

Tsang: It starts with a feeling that I can’t escape. From there, I begin with constructing the story structure and what it looks like. And I do that with Post-its, I put inspirations, feelings, and thoughts on the Post-its, and the Post-its become the story, and the story becomes the outline, and then I start writing the screenplay. It’s low risk; you can put a character point or plot point on a Post-it and you can move it around or throw it out.

Kouguell: The tone, mood and atmosphere you created in the visual storytelling and pacing is captivating. What were some of your influences?

Tsang: The films of Chantal Akerman. I read Harold Pinter. I’m interested in how silence is used and ways spaces can linger.

Kouguell: The inspiration for your script came from losing your father as a teenager.

Tsang: At the core of the film is grief. It is something that drives a lot of decisions the characters make. It took me a long time to understand my own grief. I still have a hard time actually verbalizing it, and that difficulty to express grief was a thrust for this movie too through this process of writing and discovering these characters.

Kouguell: Tell me about the transition from making short films to Blue Sun Palace, which is your first feature.

Tsang: I made a couple of shorts in grad school, and it was a transition to jump in and understand the craft of it all. Moving to the feature space meant being able to be vulnerable; I couldn’t always do that in my shorts. It demanded more of me, and my understanding of the film’s emotional life. It’s almost as if things I was too scared about myself I had to let that go.

Kouguell: How did it all come together from script to screen?

Tsang: It took a long time, I had been writing this for five years. In the beginning, the first couple of drafts were not great, it was not the truest form. It took time to really understand what the story meant and what it meant to me.

Kouguell: It’s interesting that your two main actors Lee Kang Sheng and Ke-Xi Wu are also screenwriters and directors.

Tsang: They came to the story with such intelligence and understanding, it was amazing. They gave so much and were able to make the characters their own.

Kouguell: What’s next for you?

Tsang: I’ve started to write my next film about my mother.

Kouguell: Final thoughts?

Tsang: Especially since this article is aimed towards screenwriters I will say, write what you know. It’s very true. For me, it was a lot easier when writing a first feature to take from personal experiences.

Blue Sun Palace won the French Touch prize at the Semaine de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival.

Susan Kouguell Interviews ‘Green Border’ Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland for Script Magazine

June 23, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

Agnieszka Holland discusses the inspiration behind the film, her collaboration with screenwriters Maciej Pisuk and Gabriela Lazarkiewicz, the creative decision behind filming in black and white, and more.

I had the pleasure to speak with Polish director and writer Agnieszka Holland about her latest feature film Green Border. A three-time Academy Award nominee (Angry Harvest, Europa Europa, and In Darkness), Holland, in addition to her numerous award-winning features, has also directed episodes of many notable television series, including Treme and House of Cards.

About Green Border

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so-called “green border” between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa are lured by government propaganda, promising easy passage to the European Union. Unable to cross into Europe and unable to turn back, they find themselves trapped in a rapidly escalating geopolitical stand-off.

Winner of many international awards, including the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, Green Border underscores the themes of ‘there are two sides to every story’ and the moral choices characters must face.

A scene from GREEN BORDER. A Kino Lorber release.Courtesy Metro Films

Kouguell: What was your initial inspiration for the film?

Holland: Reality was the inspiration. I made several films about the Holocaust, and Mr. Jones, about the crimes of Stalin and a Welsh journalist no one wants to listen to. In 2015, during the big crisis of refugees from Syria coming to Europe, people were afraid of the newcomers from those countries. It was easy to manipulate those fears with dictators like Putin, and the local extreme right and nationalistic movements. That’s why I wanted to tell that story, to humanize those who have been dehumanized by the propaganda and give them voices and faces.

Kouguell: The screenplay centers on three very different perspectives and viewpoints; the Syrian refugee family, a young border guard, and a middle-aged female activist. Tell me about your collaboration with your co-writers Maciej Pisuk and Gabriela Lazarkiewicz.

Holland: The film is based on real facts. I decided to try to make the film a few weeks after the crisis on the Polish border started. First, I did extensive research with everybody who knew something about the crisis or who was living through it and had a distinct point of view. I contacted two friends, one an experienced screenwriter who happened to be an activist and knew a lot of activists who were working on that border. And the second (screenwriter) was a young woman, who was pregnant when we were writing it and her sensibility was very important. Her husband is a doctor, an anesthesiologist, and he created a group of volunteers who went to the border and tried to help, and saved several lives.

My co-writers had experiences about the border, about the situation, about the logic of the activists and refugees. I talked to activists and refugees and collected recordings of conversations with them. At the beginning we thought people would be too afraid to talk to us, but by the end, even the border guards contacted us. It was important because it confirmed what the other side was saying and it confirmed the psychological aspects of what they were going through.

Agnieszka HollandCourtesy Agnieszka Holland

Then we had to decide our approach. We had two different opposite concepts; one was to find the moment, place and person and focus on that, or make it more epic and give multiple points of view. I decided to go for the second because I knew how much the migration crisis is present now for years although it’s not very well known. I wanted to show the complexity of the situation and show it through different eyes and different perspectives.

Kouguell: How did you structure the interweaving of these narratives?

Holland: We divided the storylines and everyone wrote their storylines based on their experience and research. After that we put it together, correcting and improving each other’s story and deciding on how they will be told in all, to find the emotional moments and the dramaturgy.

Kouguell: The film is shot in a quasi-documentary style.

Holland: We wanted that immediacy of that style and the camera in motion. In fact, it was impossible to shoot in a different way because we had such a short time and so many scenes and so many actions. I was very in sync with my cinematographer, and also the two women who were shooting the parallel units. There was a lot of footage, and after that, a lot of things were decided upon in the editing room.

Kouguell: Why did you choose to film in black and white?

Holland: I wanted a metaphorical quality and timelessness. You see the cell phones but at the same time it could be 1942. For the local people, a lot of imagery was striking especially in that area because of the tragic situations that took place there. During the Holocaust, it was close to the death camp where there was the uprising of the prisoners who were hiding in the same forest. There are a lot of hidden memories in that forest. To see these similar images in the film shows that it can come back.

Kouguell: The film received strong criticism from Polish politicians. Your reaction?

Holland: I expected it to some extent but I didn’t expect the hate campaign would come from the highest authorities and it would be so violent. Somehow it helped for the publicity of the film. People were very curious and went massively to see the film in Poland.

Green Border, key poster art — Courtesy Metro Films/Kino Lorber

The new government is practically doing the same things and pushing the nationalist fear and the fear and hate of others. They’re using the migration crisis for their own means. I’m pessimistic about that but I’m very glad that we made the film and it is very important to many people.

Kouguell: Final thoughts?

Holland: At a Q & A after the film was shown in France, one young woman asked me if the film can change the world. I said, ‘No, I don’t think so, the world is too deeply in trouble.’ The woman said, ‘Maybe you didn’t change the world but you changed my world.’ That is the biggest satisfaction I can have.

Green Border opens in theaters in New York on June 21, 2024 at the Film Forum and on June 28, 2024 in Los Angeles at Laemmle Royal.

Susan Kouguell’s Interview With ‘Vulcanizadora’ Writer/Director/Editor and Co-Star Joel Potrykus, Producer Ashley Potrykus and Star Joshua Burge at the Tribeca Festival

June 13, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

For Script Magazine

This dark comedy highlights Potrykus’s distinct vision with a gripping dramatic pulse, and unrelenting tone and atmosphere. Familiar themes in Potrykus’s work emerge again in ‘Vulcanizadora’: nihilism, isolation, loneliness, society-rejected outsider, however this time he digs further, tackling new territory about fatherhood and father/son relationships.

Written, directed, edited, and co-starring Joel Potrykus, Vulcanizadora, centers on two friends who trudge through a Michigan forest with the intention of following through on a disturbing pact. After they fail, one of them must return home to deal with the legal and emotional repercussions.

Joel Potrykus is a Michigan-based independent filmmaker, specializing in screenwriting and guerilla style production. His films have screened internationally and are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. His screenplays are part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science Permanent Collection, and the George A. Romero Archival Collection. He received an MFA in Writing for Film and Television from Emerson College and is an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University.

It’s been over ten years since I first met husband and wife team Joel Potrykus and producer Ashley Potrykus at the 2014 Locarno Film Festival where I interviewed them about their award-winning film BUZZARD , starring long-time collaborator Joshua Burge. In 2012, their film APE , which also starred Burge, premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival, taking the Best Emerging Director – Filmmakers of the Present award and a Best First Feature – Special Mention.

Vulcanizadora, Potrykus’s latest feature, world premiered as part of Tribeca’s US Narrative Competition and this time I met with Joel and Ashley Potrykus in New York City now joined by stars Joshua Burge and Solo Potrykus, Joel and Ashley’s 6-year-old son.

This dark comedy highlights Potrykus’s distinct vision with a gripping dramatic pulse, and unrelenting tone and atmosphere. Familiar themes in Potrykus’s work emerge again in Vulcanizadora: nihilism, isolation, loneliness, society-rejected outsider, however this time he digs further, tackling new territory about fatherhood and father/son relationships.

Joshua Burge in Vulcanizadora (2024).Courtesy Sob Noisse

Kouguell: The three of you have been collaborating for a long time along with your filmmaking team Sob Noisse.

Ashley Potrykus: I joined the Sob Noisse band for their first feature and Josh before that with Coyote. When I first joined, film was not my area at all and with each movie, it was another stepping stone and as that happened, our Sob Noisse band got bigger.

Joel Potrykus: At some point, I realized I couldn’t make a movie without Ashley; she’s the other half of my filmmaking brain that keeps everything organized and clears my thoughts.

It is like a band, and we call it Sob Noisse; I look at it like a musician band would be and everyone has the instrument they play. Josh is definitely like the lead singer, he’s the voice of what we’re trying to say and what people should be looking at. He’s got a certain face, persona and rhythm.

Joshua Burge: I never had any intention to be an actor, I went to school to be a filmmaker and to write. I got bit by the music bug while I was there and started performing, and Joel was a fan and then asked if I could be in one of his movies. The first one was Coyote and at that point, I didn’t really understand what acting was, and then with the first feature, Ape, I felt I was part of the Sob Noisse band.

Ashley Potrykus: Ape was the first time, at least for me, and I think for you, Josh, that we felt that we each came into our own role a little bit more.

Joshua Burge: When we started, everyone was wearing all the hats.

Kouguell: This is another low-budget feature for you.

Joel Potrykus: It’s the biggest budget we ever worked with but still a vastly low budget. We shot on 16 mm. I think it’s less rare that these micro-budget features are breaking out and we are now in the norm. We’ve shot on 16mm before but never a feature. We didn’t think it was financially feasible but it is. If you shoot the way we shoot, efficiently and economically and not burning through twenty takes, you can totally do it.

Kouguell: The script definitely does not follow a traditional 3-act structure. Just when I thought the plot was going to turn one way, it shifts. Yet, all these twists and turns are earned; they have been subtly set up. At times it also felt a little improvisational. How scripted was it?

Joshua Burge: It was very scripted. The only exception was sometimes we had an idea before we’d start rolling and we might try another line or an extra tack to bring something home. But for the most part, it was all on the page.

Joel Potrykus: I’ve always wanted to be an improv-style director so I was like, let’s start with an outline, we’ll shoot from an outline, but then it turned into a real script with real dialogue. We didn’t have the luxury to improvise when we were shooting.

Kouguell: How long was the shoot?

Joel Potrykus: We scheduled it for 10 days, which was really bonkers, but somehow we got it done in 8 days.

Ashley Potrykus: And we had a big location move, which was a two-hour drive with all of our gear and our crew, and closing up Airbnb’s within that time frame.

Joel Potrykus: We are a band, we know the rhythm, we know the beat.

Kouguell: How much input on the script did Ashley and Josh have?

Joel Potrykus: I’m a control freak so I wrote on my own. It was about the tone, and I know that Josh knows how to play that tone. We’ll all read it and then talk about it, and I’d take those ideas and incorporate it into a new draft.

Kouguell: In the opening scenes of your film, the music choices set an unsettling yet somewhat comedic tone and atmosphere. Let’s talk about the tone of the film.

Joel Potrykus: The three things Josh and I would say before the film were: “Sad, funny, scary.” We got to hit those.

Kouguell: We’ve been talking about the consequences of the characters’ actions. For Joshua’s character, seeking redemption is complicated and defies expectations for the viewer.

Joel Potrykus: It was the chance to see his character’s guilt and shame and remorse; he’s terrified of that redemption and what that means, and the repercussions of redemption.

Joshua Burge: I think my character is settling for relief, maybe not redemption.

Kouguell: Josh, the scenes you had with Solo were very powerful.

Joel Potrykus: What was it like to play Jeremy, Solo?

Solo Potrykus: Practice, practice, practice.

Ashley Potrykus: He didn’t love rehearsals, but one day he looked at us and said, “Mom, Dad, don’t worry, I got this.”

Vulcanizadora, key art — Courtesy Sob Noisse

Joshua Burge: Solo nailed every line, he was so well-prepared and so professional.

Kouguell: Your script subverts the traditional screenwriting rules by breaking them and successfully defying the expectations for the viewer.

Joel Potrykus: I teach screenwriting and we use Save The Cat and I drill the 3-act structure. The more that I teach, the more confident I am subverting that 3-act structure because I know what audiences subconsciously expect these moments to happen; and so when they don’t happen, I feel like a lot of audiences will have a hard time following along with the structure so it’s my job to put in these little pieces that keep you holding on to the next scene. I like this script because there’s not even a midpoint, there’s a two-thirds point. I’m curious what the reaction will be because it’s not giving audiences what they are expecting.

Vulcanizadora had its World Premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival in the US Narrative Competition.

Upcoming Tribeca screenings:

Tuesday, June 11 – 2:30 pm EST at Tribeca Film Center

Thursday, June 13 – 8:45 pm EST at AMC 19th St. East 6

Susan’s Interview with ‘The Freshly Cut Grass’ Filmmaker Celina Murga, Presented by Martin Scorsese at the Tribeca Festival

June 13, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

SUSAN KOUGUELL for Script Magazine

Celina Murga discusses the scriptwriting process, the major themes of gender roles in the workplace and at home, and the conflicts and repercussions of the actions of the male and female professor in each of these environments.

Premiering at the Tribeca Festival in the international narrative competition The Freshly Cut Grass directed by Celina Murga, and written by Murga, Juan Villegas, and Lucía Osorio, is executive produced by Martin Scorsese.

About the Film

A male professor at a university is in conflict with his own roles as husband, father and teacher. The eventual relationship with a female student highlights his crisis. As in a mirror, a female professor, also in crisis, has an eventual relationship with a male student. The duplicate story questions the power relations between genders.

I had the pleasure to speak with Argentinian writer, director and producer Celina Murga during the Tribeca Festival about The Freshly Cut Grass. We discussed the scriptwriting process, and the major themes of gender roles in the workplace and at home, and the conflicts and repercussions of the actions of the male and female professor in each of these environments.

The parallel storylines are thought-provoking, and avoid cliche and predictability.

Still from The Freshly Cut Grass (2024).Courtesy Barraca Prods.

Kouguell: Let’s start with the evolution of Freshly Cut Grass from script to screen.

Celina Murga: It was a challenging process from the beginning because we knew that the possibilities of telling the two stories about human relationships are complex. It was challenging to mirror the stories.

We worked a lot with the actors. We shot first with Joaquín [Furriel] and then the Marina [de Tavira] story to mirror the story on a set. We worked hard to try to find a way to connect with their situations and to build these characters, knowing the complexities they are immersed in.

Kouguell: Tell me about your screenplay collaboration with your co-writers Juan Villegas, and Lucía Osorio.’

Celina Murga: I always like to be involved in the writing process and write stories I care about. I like to work with others who give their point of view to what I’m doing. It’s a very democratic process. Sometimes in the beginning, Juan and I wrote one character, I wrote about Natalie and he wrote about Pablo and then we switched characters.

We were going to shoot in 2020 but then there was the pandemic. During this time we kept reflecting about the story and characters. We showed the script to others we trusted because it was important to figure out if the situations were subtle enough.

Kouguell: In his executive producer role, what input did Martin Scorsese have on your film?

Celina Murga: He allowed us to reach more producers. In a more creative way, he read the first version and saw one of the first edited versions. He was part of the creative process, and very supportive and generous with me. He’s someone who likes to be there and be part of it, and at the same time aware of me as a woman director and not someone to push the story he wants to tell on me. In that deeply profound way, he is a true mentor in allowing me to find my own voice.

Kouguell: You mentioned that the story developed from two characters in crisis, and that this idea proposed a very particular structure that restricts and provokes certain ideas of mise en scène, and aims to be a mirror in which two very similar stories take place. How did you develop the script’s structure?

Celina Murga: When we started writing this film in 2018, in Argentina we were in a big movement regarding families and we were talking about these ideas of how men and women are sometimes different and many times are also equal.

In the story we wrote, we knew that these two characters were going to be in a middle-age crisis and in a particular moment in their lives, asking about themselves as fathers, mothers and teachers. An important part of the process was to find the scenes where they were similar and at the same time not literally similar, and that was a really beautiful process to find a way that each character has their own particularities.

THE FRESHLY CUT GRASS POSTER — Courtesy Barraca Prods.

It happened in the script but also in the editing room process; the editing room is another way of rewriting the script and it’s very important.

Kouguell: Although the film is set in Argentina, the story feels universal.

Celina Murga: Argentina is where I was born and my home, a place where I know and am interested in talking about human behaviors. And it is very universal. For me, the film is about how we relate to each other and what it is to be a family, and what it is to be in a marriage of many years. It also questions how society and culture have made us a part of these systems. My main goal is to find more honest ways of being together in this world.

The Freshly Cut Grass had its World Premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival in the International Narrative Competition.

Upcoming Tribeca screenings:

Thursday, June 13 – 3:00 pm EST at AMC 19th St. East 6

Friday, June 14 – 3:15 pm EST at Village East by Angelika

Susan’s Interview with Steve McQueen and Bianca Stigter about their Documentary ‘Occupied City’

May 10, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

In a deeply personal conversation with filmmakers Steve McQueen and Bianca Stigter, they discuss the recurring themes of time, memory, and history in their respective work and in their collaboration on ‘Occupied City,’ as well as breaking the rules of traditional documentary filmmaking.

SUSAN KOUGUELL

Script Magazine: DEC 22, 2023

About Occupied City: The past collides with our precarious present in Occupied City, informed by the book Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945) written by Bianca Stigter. McQueen creates two interlocking portraits: a door-to-door excavation of the Nazi occupation that still haunts his adopted city, and a vivid journey through the last years of pandemic and protest.

Steve McQueen is a British film director, film producer, screenwriter, and video artist. His film 12 Years A Slave received an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and in 2016 the BFI Fellowship. McQueen’s critically acclaimed and award-winning films also include Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), Widows (2018) and the anthology series Small Axe. Past documentary works include the BAFTA-winning series Uprising (2021). For his work as a visual artist, McQueen was awarded with the Turner Prize, and he represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2009. He has exhibited in major museums around the world. In 2020, McQueen was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for his services to the Arts.

Bianca Stigter is an historian and cultural critic. She writes for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad and published three books of essays. Stigter was an associate producer on 12 Years a Slave and Widows. In 2019 she published the book Atlas of an Occupied City. Amsterdam 1940-1945. In 2021 she directed the documentary Three Minutes – A Lengthening, which premiered in the Giornate degli Autori at the Venice Film Festival and was selected for the festivals of Telluride, Toronto, Sundance, as well as IDFA and DocA- viv. It won the 2022 Yad Vashem Award for cinematic excellence in a Holocaust related Documentary.

There is a haunting quality to Occupied City, hearing the emotionless voiceover text about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam over images of contemporary life in Amsterdam. With encouragement from McQueen and Stigter I began this interview on a personal note, recounting when I saw the film at a recent press screening. Images of the neighborhood Apollolaan where my mother grew up, and the text about the Hunger Winter, the countless atrocities, including the many Jews forced into hiding, and the specific identification cards with the letter J stamped on it. My grandmother was among those in hiding, and she too had these documents, which I shared with McQueen and Stigter. I thanked them for allowing me the time to share this with them and expressed that this interview is not about my story, but about their film.

Still from 'Occupied City' — Still from Occupied CityA24

McQueen: It’s all of our stories. I don’t think you should leave yourself out of this interview; it would not be in service to your readers. It’s important to have this transparency. To be honest with you, it’s wonderful to add your experience into the interview because you’re a survivor of this situation.

Kouguell: Steve, in your interview with curator Donna DeSalvo in 2016 at the Whitney Museum, you discussed your installation piece End Credits about the Paul Robeson FBI files. The idea/theme of words being redacted, brought to mind not only the obvious government censorship but the idea of the literal erasure of history.

There is a thematic correlation between this work End Credits and Occupied City, and Bianca’s documentary: Three Minutes: A Lengthening Trailer. These works are historical investigations, which address the erasure of history, and the fragility of memory and time.

Bianca StigterCourtesy Bianca Stigter/A24

Stigler: What they also share is that you can find new forms to deal with the past and you don’t necessarily have to stick to the strictly well-known feature film or documentary genre, you can try to find a new way to convey history and the erasure of certain histories. And, also to make it more of an experience than a history lesson. There’s certainly common ground there.

McQueen: Both of us are very much about the audience and how things can sink in. With End Credits, it’s much more sculptural than Occupied City and Three Minutes, it’s for an art space due to the nature of its presentation.

Kouguell: Occupied City’s length of 4 ½ hours including an intermission requires a type of commitment from an audience. If it was two hours, for example, I don’t think the film would have the same impact. Steve, you mentioned that the film had to have the weight of time, the weight of recounting history, and to give the viewer time to reflect.

McQueen: Once people see the film, the length is never discussed. If anything, when it comes into discussion people wish it was longer.

Stigter: People said they lost any track of time. You enter a different zone of time, you don’t feel the clock ticking and you are transported somewhere else. One thing is for sure; you hear so many individual stories and you see so many people that you realize you can’t hear everyone’s story, then the film would have to be 100,00 times longer. It gives you a certain tension that no matter what you do, you can never know it all.

McQueen: It’s about the practice. It was the whole idea of using Bianca’s text, which occurred over 19-20 years of research, and projecting on that the every day. We never contemplated it to be shorter. When I was shooting it, I didn’t know what it was going to be, I had to find it through the process of filmmaking.

Kouguell: Bianca, in your film Three Minutes: A Lengthening, you made the decision not to show any contemporary faces except at the very end. We only see the three minutes of footage repeatedly shown and freeze frames of a home movie in 1938 Nasielsk in eastern Poland months before they were deported to ghettos by the invading Nazis.

With Three Minutes: A Lengthening and Occupied City you both made some unconventional choices in conveying your narrative, such as avoiding talking heads, and not including or only including archival footage from the past.

Stigter: In Three Minutes, it exists only out of archival footage from 1938. Doing things in this way makes you think about time more. With the other forms of documentary, people almost forget there are also forms; here you are asked to think about it.

Kouguell: Occupied City was shot over the course of 2 ½ years on 35mm film, and you had 34 hours of footage. With the exterior shots, did people know you were filming them?

McQueen: Most of the time people knew because the camera was there but sometimes not. It was the case of getting the everyday and wanting to be spontaneous.

Kouguell: Was anything staged? I’m thinking about the scene where the bicyclist hits a woman towards the end of the film.

McQueen: It just happened. Sometimes you have to predict the unpredictable.

Kouguell: There is a huge responsibility to the history of Amsterdam, the people of the past, and the present. Obviously you cannot include it all so the choices then become what to include or embrace, what to honor, what to leave out. How did you arrive at these decisions in Occupied City?

McQueen: We shot everything in Atlas of an Occupied City – over 2,100 addresses. When we had the footage, it was a case of certain things being repeated so therefore we could leave that out, and then we decided what was the best for that particular version. What flowed and what didn’t. We were fortunate to have this rich footage and situations to make this movie.

Stigter: When I was writing the book, the most harrowing part was when I couldn’t find any information about someone except that he or she was born and murdered, and that was all. If you can keep a little bit by telling about someone, there is at least something left instead of nothing. For me that was difficult to come to terms with; you can’t tell everything.

Kouguell: Bianca, I read that you referred to your book Atlas as “time machine on paper” – it’s a beautiful way to reference it.

Stigter: For me, it felt like that because you have a lot of history books that deal with the big picture or have the story of one person. What fascinated me was, could you imagine walking through a certain street back in that time so you knew things about the shops and the offices and the people that lived there; that you can get a sense of how something was in a different time and that fascinated me.

The strange thing about Amsterdam, in the city center, the canals, and so on, is that they are very much from the 17th and 18th century. You cannot see the Second World War and what happened there but you know it happened in the same spots where people were round up or executed, or took their own lives. The book and the film both try to cross that, while at the same time acknowledging that it is uncrossable. There are all kinds of tension between the past and present throughout the whole film.

Kouguell: What questions haven’t you been asked in previous interviews that you would like to address about Occupied City?

Stigter: The music; it’s very important for movies in general and in this movie, it is especially important.

McQueen: What composer Oliver Coates brought to the table was so transcendent; it brings another layer into the narrative, another echo in the audio sense.

Stigler: It makes it more abstract in a way but also grounds it very much.

Kouguell: What was then and what is now repeats for me. Ending with the bar mitzvah rehearsal and then the actual bar mitzvah was quite moving.

McQueen: We were invited to our friends’ son’s bar mitzvah. We thought it would be a good idea to shoot it. It was one of those things that everything in this movie is about our city; it’s about where we live, where our children go to school. We talked to the rabbi for permission.

In a way, it was to say that after all that, the Nazis didn’t win. There is a Jewish life that continues and exists in Amsterdam today. It was a very personal way to end the film. It’s about our family and our friends, and all of our futures.

Stigter: It’s beautiful and hopeful. It’s something fragile of course. We see and hear the boy’s voice trying to read the old words – it is very touching for me. It was also about not showing just the bad things but also the good things.

Kouguell: What has been the response to Occupied City from the Dutch audience?

Stigter: We had the Dutch premiere in the most beautiful cinema in the world, the Tuschinski theatre. The original owner was murdered in Auschwitz during the war.

McQueen: It was extremely special to have the premiere there and we dedicated it to him. It was a packed theater. You could feel the atmosphere was special to put this movie in this cinema.

Stigter: To see it in Amsterdam or another cinema, when you walk outside, I think one will have the feeling, I’ll look differently at my city now. In a funny way of course, people realize yes, that it’s very extremely local but it also has something universal. One can imagine this film in Paris or in London or New York. One can imagine the film anywhere.

Kouguell: Indeed. It is universal.

McQueen: Your background and history is amazing and thank you for sharing it with us.

Occupied City is in limited release in theaters and is available on most streaming platforms.

Pulling the Curtain Back at Script Magazine with Editor-In-Chief Sadie Dean and Senior Contributing Editor Susan Kouguell

May 10, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off

We each come from a unique position as filmmakers ourselves, which offers a shorthand, not to mention inspiration when interviewing screenwriters and filmmakers. They’re appreciative when we find nuances in their work that perhaps no one has commented on before and for us, it often gives us further insight into our own projects.

Pulling-The-Curtain-Back-at-ScriptMag-2024-Script — Canva

Susan: One of the most common questions that I get from my students and Su-City clients is the importance of going to film school. There is no one-size-fits-all answer; it depends on the types of films you want to make and your career goals.

After undergraduate school, I was a fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program, which was a perfect match for my practice as an experimental filmmaker. Now decades later, many of us remain close. Having that community is invaluable.

You attended the American Film Institute in the screenwriting program. How was that experience?

Sadie: It’s a super intense program. You’re writing, producing, and just putting out work constantly. What’s so good about that program is that you are in this really great group of people who are fostering what you’re trying to do as a creative. You have all the support systems to make your projects, and if you fall down in terms of writing, they lift you back up in some way.

It’s all traditional narrative filmmaking and linear storytelling.

A lot of us came straight out of undergrad school and in our early 20s, and taking out an incredibly large loan, not realizing how that’s going to affect your future. You hope that you’re going to sell a big script and make it big, but that’s not the reality. Coming out of film school and not having that support system anymore is hard. You can’t just necessarily say, OK, I’m going to make this film, and I have these people and the money to do it, because the school’s basically giving it to you or giving it to you from your own tuition.

I think there is a benefit in going to a film school like that, because you’re going there not only to make movies and work on your voice as a storyteller, but you’re networking. The first day there I remember being told: ‘look to your left, look to your right, look in front of you, look behind you, you’re paying for your network, you don’t know if the person is going to be your agent, or your producer, or your director.’

You’re building that film tribe. You never know who they’re going to know and put you in touch with. But then after the program is over, there’s that feeling of where I find my people again. Some are smart and go in different directions.

Susan: Define smart.

Sadie: They’re not ‘just’ screenwriters. I feel like if you’re going into this business, and you want a career after film school, become an editor or cinematographer because there’s a lot more work there and not as much for a first-time screenwriter out the gate. Unfortunately, I wish there was.

There is just more accessibility, I think especially for editors. I know a lot of editors who say, ‘Yes, I’m on a reality show, but I’m paying my bills.’ They’re networking with other people who will bring them on to different shows or to a feature. You’re still working in the industry. Whereas for screenwriters, it’s a little tough particularly to be in the industry unless you’re an assistant or something and a lot of us don’t want to do that.

Susan: We’ve been talking about the benefits of producing. I associate produced two independent features. Honing that skill, knowing how to navigate getting a film made from script to screen, raising money, working with entertainment attorneys, agents, talent and crews, was invaluable.

Trajectories and Detours

Sadie: You came through a non-traditional way of filmmaking to find your way into the studio system.

Susan: It was a confluence of things. I volunteered at the Independent Feature Film Market, working as a buyer liaison, putting filmmakers together with executives. This got my foot in the door. Soon I was hired as an acquisitions and talent consultant for Republic Pictures and Warner Bros., which led to working in various capacities at Paramount Pictures, Viacom, Punch Productions, and Miramax. With that experience combined with making my experimental short films, I worked with director Louis Malle on And the Pursuit of Happiness, which was a great experience.

Meanwhile, I had started my screenplay and postproduction consulting company Su-City Pictures East, was a writer-for-hire on a dozen features, and later began my teaching career. I’ve always been juggling and cobbling out different jobs so I could continue making my own projects.

Sadie: I’ve had a similar experience. I had a writing partner right out of grad school; we met at AFI. We did writing-for-hire projects and specs. We were planning to work as ghost writers or do punch-ups for other writers, but you know, life happens. I fell back on producing because that’s how I started in the business working on music videos and other projects. I’ve also written things for other people, done script consulting; all of this helps finetune your craft.

Susan: What was your experience with writing spec scripts?

Sadie: It was a whirlwind coming out of an AFI, getting approached by agents, managers, and production companies. I was a young 20-something kid who didn’t know what she was doing. Either I was overthinking these opportunities, or I would be scared of turning something in that I didn’t think was perfect. In hindsight, it was never going to be perfect. Just turn it in, they want to read it.

Susan: It’s hard not to get one’s own way. There’s also that important aspect of following one’s own gut. Do you have an agent now?

Sadie: Not at the moment. I had a talent manager who hip-pocketed me. He had brought me on for a project and I wrote a short film based on an idea he had, and I worked with him on developing projects as a vehicle for talent. I was at AFI at the time, and I had so much schoolwork that I chose AFI over going down that path. It was a great learning experience because I was writing stuff that was going to actors to read and getting feedback.

After AFI, I was a producer of an independent feature documentary, I put all my creative focus and energy into that for about six years and put everything else on the back burner.

Susan: How did you get involved with Script magazine?

Sadie: I was in a writers’ group, and a friend there told me about a sales associate job at The Writers Store when it was a brick and mortar. Years later, Jeanne, who had been running Script for almost a decade, reached out to me and said she was looking to move on to Pipeline Artists. I never saw myself writing articles, running an online magazine, and running the show in this way.

You wrote for the magazine when it was an actual physical publication?

Susan: Yes. And, for the Writers Guild publication Written By.

Sadie: How did that come about?

Susan: I had spoken on a couple of panels for the Writers Guild, and they asked me to write some articles for them, which led to other freelance writing gigs. I then wrote two screenwriting books. Like you, I never saw myself writing for publications, but personal circumstances prompted me to discover unexpected opportunities.

Film Festivals Pros and Cons and Choosing What’s Right for You

Sadie: What are some key things to really focus on when entering?

Susan: Obviously it’s more advantageous to have your work seen in person at a festival, but online festivals can also widen the viewership and draw attention to you as a filmmaker and continue that networking and word of mouth going.

If it’s a newer festival, I question if it’s worth the submission fee. I also look at who the judges are. Having been a judge at festivals over the years, generally, the first-round judges are students or interns and not necessarily the filmmakers and executives you hope will see your work.

I use FilmFreeway, as well as other lists that focus on experimental films. What about you?

Sadie: I used FilmFreeway for this last short. It’s great because it does give you many filters or criteria. But it’s also dangerous because they’ll spam your inbox, and it can get expensive quickly.

My criteria is not the prize money. I also look at who’s judging and if there are any judges, is the festival going to be in person, and how long has the festival been running? Do I know other filmmakers who have been to the festival? Is it worth going to?

Everyone wants to get into Sundance or South by Southwest, but it’s such a different ballpark. Generally, you need some money behind the film, and/or an A-list actor or someone with a name to really get you that visibility. There are a lot of great filmmakers out there who don’t have that access and I think they should all be included.

Susan: I agree. Why do you think things have changed?

Sadie: Some films are categorized as independent but then you look at the list of producers and there are big names or they’re affiliated with Netflix, for example,

I made my film We’re Good during the pandemic with an incredible cast and crew. It’s about a chronically content couple that realizes they have never had an actual argument and feel their relationship is lacking. A shocking turn in their evening leads to them exposing their secret feelings.

We're Good, key art — Courtesy Sadie Dean

I learned that my movie was too long at 14 minutes. It should have been 10 minutes or less because I want the actual opportunity to screen at a festival – they’re looking at programming running time. Programmers may say, ‘We liked it, but we just didn’t have room because we can put four other movies in the slot. And that’s just better for us. You know, but good luck with your movie.’

We got into the Austin Revolution Film Festival. One of my producers had screened there before and said you’re going to love it. It’s just a great atmosphere. Super independent. I thought, ‘Oh my God, these are my people.’ There are people from all walks of life, people who are working in the industry or not, and they’re making great art as filmmakers.

The festival director said it’s not about winning the prize, it’s the people you’re going to meet here and hopefully, walk away with. The biggest prize I got was meeting at least 10 new filmmakers that I’m now in touch with. I’m already helping produce a short film. I’m rebuilding that filmmaking tribe. And with these people, we can hold each other accountable.

Go to the festivals where you can find that community, who are like-minded and not there because they want to take a photo on the red carpet and with the hopes that they’ll win first place.

Susan: For us, it is a labor of love and our passion. For my recent feature-length documentary essay Inaugural, which received a SUNY Purchase Faculty Support Award, it’s challenging to find venues because it is a niche project; I was well aware of that when making it, but it didn’t stop me. It means hustling meetings and as in the studio system, it’s a revolving door of executives and curators.

Sadie: For a lot of people, they think finding success happens overnight. It’s ten years, if you’re lucky enough to get anything up and out and finding those eyeballs to see your work. There are so many opportunities, but there’s also the question of who do you go to and who do you trust? You don’t want to put all your eggs in the basket of one person who might be gone tomorrow.

The Day Job

Sadie: I find myself very fortunate that I get to work at Script and talk to filmmakers and still have my foot in the door, and being educated about what’s happening in the industry daily, and what films or TV shows are coming out and who’s who, and then the networking part of it. Talking about creative pursuits with other people and what they’re doing and their process, is all really inspiring.

Susan: For me, I’ve been fortunate that my steady job continues to be teaching screenwriting and film at universities. It’s also kept me in the film community, and it’s been wonderful to see many students find creative and personal success over the years.

Your editor-in-chief job encompasses a great deal!

Sadie: I have my editorial calendar, organizing what the contributors are doing, when it’s going to be turned in, and budgeting. I put the pieces in, edit them as needed. I get them into the system and schedule them. And then there’s the admin work behind the scenes. There’s also a lot of marketing that I do in terms of building our newsletters, talking to other organizations and fostering partnerships with them, and then also running The Writers Store. There’s a lot happening that feeds into what Script is doing.

I’m also conducting interviews, watching screeners, or prepping for an interview. And I’m dealing with publicists and scheduling interviews with their clients.

Susan: It’s a lot. There’s also the other element too, which is not only screening the films, but doing pre-interview background research about the filmmakers and their projects.

Who inspired you with the interviews that you’ve done for the magazine?

Sadie: One that definitely jumps out is Jonah Feingold who made Dating and New York. I interviewed him during the pandemic. I told him I wanted to get back into making films and he said in a nutshell, ‘Set a date, then start telling people when you’re going to make your movie, and then it becomes reality. Then these people are asking you next time they see you how your film is going. And then people with whom you might want to work you reach out to. They’re now holding you accountable for following through.’ I thought OK, I’m going to try that out. So, I set a date and started telling people I’m making this movie. And then I realized, I guess I have to do this thing. I took that to heart and ran with it.

I talk about the writing process with many filmmakers and try to apply it to my writing and see if that sticks. Monique Matthews had some great advice about approaching her writing routine. Which is she’ll stop writing a scene halfway through and save it for the next day – it’s a motivation to keep going the next day. It was a no-brainer. Why haven’t I thought of that? I’ve been doing that every morning, I have my next scene ready to go. I take these nuggets from other filmmakers that have helped a lot.

Who’s inspired you that you’ve interviewed?

Susan: Agnes Varda. I first interviewed her at the Locarno Film Festival, and then at her incredible exhibit of installation work at the Blum and Poe Gallery in New York. She offered me words of wisdom and a personal push I needed to return to making experimental films. Interviewing her daughter producer Rosalie Varda, as well as The Brink filmmakers Alison Klayman and Marie Therese Guirgis, and Occupied City filmmakers Steve McQueen and Brigit Stigter, among many others have been poignant and unforgettable conversations.

Sadie: For both of us we have that background of being through this pipeline and pulled in and pushed out in so many ways and learning from it, and we can speak to that. We have that shorthand with other filmmakers who are like, I see you, I get what you’re trying to do with your work, and let’s talk about it.

Upcoming screenings

Barbie Dream House, still — Courtesy Susan Kouguell

Susan’s film Barbie Dream House is included in the Avant-barb(ie) group show at the San Francisco Cinematheque on May 16th.

Sadie’s short film We’re Good will have its Los Angeles Premiere at the Beverly Hills Film Festival on May 2nd.

Susan’s Interview with ‘The Graduates’ Filmmaker Hannah Peterson at the Tribeca Festival

June 14, 2023 / sucity / Comments Off

Hannah Peterson generously offers insights into the development of her project from the writing and interview process to the remarkable changes that occurred in the editing room.

Mina Sundwall in THE GRADUATES. Photo credit Carolina Costa.

During the Tribeca Festival I spoke to Hannah Peterson, the writer, director and editor of her debut fiction feature The Graduates. Peterson generously offered insights into the development of her project from the writing and interview process to the remarkable changes that occurred in the editing room. Our in-depth conversation also tackled the tough subject of the aftermath of gun violence, and the decision not to portray violence on screen.

“While I was writing, I experienced a sudden personal loss when my younger brother died of gun suicide. The grief that I experienced through that loss, and the coming together of my family and community around it, became imbued into the fabric of the story and informed several of the choices I made in the edit.” – Hannah Peterson

Named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine, Hannah Peterson’s work has screened at Sundance Film Festival, MoMA, REDCAT, Tribeca Film Festival, and Slamdance Film Festival where she was awarded the AGBO fellowship for her short film, East of the River. She holds an MFA in Film Directing from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and a BA in Screen Studies from the New School. Prior to her work as a director, Hannah mentored under filmmakers Sean Baker and Chloé Zhao.

About The Graduates: A year after her boyfriend dies from gun violence, a young woman prepares to graduate high school as she navigates an uncertain future alongside a community that is searching for ways to heal.

KOUGUELL: From the inception of the script to the final cut, you were in a unique position as the writer, director, and editor, to convey the story you wanted to tell. This is an auteur film in the best sense of the definition. Tell me about the process.

PETERSON: When I set out to make The Graduates, I was interested in telling a contemporary story, a coming-of-age story in the American public school system. I set about interviewing high schoolers and recent graduates, and asked about their experiences, their fears, and the highs and lows of high school.

This is something I explored in my short films prior and wanted to explore in a feature. Nearly everyone I spoke to mentioned their anxiety about safety in their school and that on any given day something could happen. I was very struck by that. I couldn’t tell a contemporary story without touching upon that throughline. I wanted to explore what it was like when the cameras left and the resources left, and how it was really a community left to navigate the circumstances.

Director Hannah Peterson. Photo by Nadia Sarwar.

In terms of the script, I was writing it as a vehicle for me to direct. I always see the script as a more malleable instrument. There were scenes that I knew I wanted to cast real people in or cast locally. For instance, the grief circle and the basketball team. I knew in advance before we went into production I wanted those to be real people, actual high schoolers, sharing their actual stories, their actual hopes and dreams. I was leaving space for those moments to be happening organically, and the rest to be scripted.

In the process of production things obviously changed as they do. As you mentioned, to be the editor, I had a new and added perspective. I certainly did a lot of rewriting in the edit of the film. The script was originally structured in chapters, Chapter 1 was Genevieve, Chapter 2 was Ben, and Chapter 3 was Jon. It worked so well on paper and I had great responses to the script and we shot it that way, but it wasn’t until the editing room – it might be a testament to the performances all being so powerful – but I knew we had to be with all these characters from the start to finish of the film. Of course, this required some pulling from Act 3 to Act 1, and reordering a lot of things and that was really an activity of discovery. I really found the film when I made that decision to do that.

KOUGUELL: You just mentioned about the interviews you had with actual high schoolers. Please elaborate about that process.

PETERSON: I was lucky to learn about writing and directing from Chloé Zhao and Sean Baker. Both of them spend a lot of time on locations where they will be filming and speaking with individuals who are living the experience of the characters. That creates a fluidity between the screenwriting process and the casting and location processes; that was something that was influential in all my work.

On this feature, I set up as a writer to be a listener. The students who I interviewed were just any students who were willing to speak to me. I actually saw a photojournalism article in the New York Times called “Inside Santa Monica High”. There were these candid photos taken by Nico Young, who was a junior at the time. I was so moved by the photographs. I reached out to Nico and asked him to meet the subjects of his photographs. In my interviews, I asked students what high school is like. The students shared their journal entries and told me private moments in their lives, and through those conversations, I got to hear about their anxieties and about safety in their schools. That became the most substantive part of these conversations.

KOUGUELL: There is no antagonist, except for the gunman who remains unnamed and unseen on screen. This was a powerful choice not to give attention to him, which is often the case in the media.

PETERSON: I think the first and easiest choice I made was not to show the act of violence itself. This created a lot of creative challenges because you’re basically skipping over the inciting incident of all these people’s lives. When you’re talking about trauma and grief, they’re not actually linear experiences and when you’re in that situation, the world is antagonistic. You don’t necessarily need massive conflict in every scene because your life is conflicted. I really decided to trust in that and in the characters and situate the plot around these private moments of grieving rather than on traditional plot points or inciting incidents.

KOUGUELL: You mentioned this feeling of agency that your main characters had, and how they are on that journey to find that. There were also moments of levity that were important and not only drove the narrative forward, it made the drama that much more impactful and moving.

PETERSON: It’s always really important when talking about things as heavy as death, grief, and trauma, to lever that with moments of levity. When you’re spending time with young people it’s inevitable because people don’t always talk about what they’re feeling all the time. A lot of it is underneath; a lot of it is mundane, just natural levity in the way young people express themselves, especially in the privacy of each other’s company that I wanted to make sure was part of the fabric of this film.

KOUGUELL: You allowed the characters to breathe in the film and spend time with them, not cutting away from them too quickly. This is such a difficult subject matter and I imagine with the whole process of treading that fine line, questioning: is it too much, is it too little? How did you find that balance?

PETERSON: I cared so much about the characters and cared about the actors. Each character was emblematic of a multitude of conversations I had along the way about survivors with high schoolers and with youth. It was so important for me to be able to do those people justice and to honor them.

When I was editing it, thinking about the frame and the camera, I wanted it to feel like I was there with the characters and I didn’t want to leave them until they were ready to be alone. It drives the rhythm of the script. In the moment that a character could be strong for a minute, we can go to someone else, and when that person needs someone to be there we can go there as audience members.

KOUGUELL: The film concludes on a hopeful note without feeling contrived or tied up in a neat bow.

PETERSON: I’m really glad you got that. I wanted people to take from the film the conversations I had with survivors during the writing process. Throughout the conversations I was moved by the sense of agency and urgency and altruism and that while this generation was rooted in grief, I found it really hopeful. In the film there are no grand gestures; there is a subtle rebuilding of a sense of self that really comes when each character starts to turn towards each other. For me, there is so much hope in that.

I hope that this film provides a safe space for people to process feelings about gun violence in our country that can exist outside of the reactive cycle of the news media and to connect with one another, because I believe that connection and conversation can be the precursors for action.

Su-City Pictures East, LLC

Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Category: INTERVIEWS WITH WRITERS & FILMMAKERS (page 1 of 4)

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Susan Kouguell Interview with ‘WICKED’ Writer Winnie Holzman

Susan Kouguell Interviews ‘Leap of Faith’ Director Nicholas Ma for Script Magazine

Interview with Constance Tsang, Writer and Director of ‘Blue Sun Palace’

Susan Kouguell Interviews ‘Green Border’ Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland for Script Magazine

Susan Kouguell’s Interview With ‘Vulcanizadora’ Writer/Director/Editor and Co-Star Joel Potrykus, Producer Ashley Potrykus and Star Joshua Burge at the Tribeca Festival

Susan’s Interview with ‘The Freshly Cut Grass’ Filmmaker Celina Murga, Presented by Martin Scorsese at the Tribeca Festival

Susan’s Interview with Steve McQueen and Bianca Stigter about their Documentary ‘Occupied City’

Pulling the Curtain Back at Script Magazine with Editor-In-Chief Sadie Dean and Senior Contributing Editor Susan Kouguell

Susan’s Interview with ‘The Graduates’ Filmmaker Hannah Peterson at the Tribeca Festival

Hannah Peterson generously offers insights into the development of her project from the writing and interview process to the remarkable changes that occurred in the editing room.

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Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Category: INTERVIEWS WITH WRITERS & FILMMAKERS (page 1 of 4)

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Hannah Peterson generously offers insights into the development of her project from the writing and interview process to the remarkable changes that occurred in the editing room.

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