October 16, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Examining Relationships in ‘Hard Truths,’ ’Việt and Nam’ and ‘Happyend’ at the 2024 New York Film Festival
At the New York Film Festival, ‘Hard Truths,’ ‘Việt and Nam’ and ‘Happyend’ are strikingly different from each other in tone and execution yet they do share a commonality – their examinations of relationships are striking and thought-provoking.
At the New York Film Festival, Hard Truths, Việt and Nam and Happyend are strikingly different from each other in tone and execution yet they do share a commonality – their examinations of relationships are striking and thought-provoking. Moreover, these relationships are familial: Hard Truths (which centers on the family’s dynamics with the protagonist in constant crisis); Việt and Nam (a secret couple and mother in search of the father) and Happyend (two teens and their friend group form alliances, forming their own type of family unit).
Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy in Hard Truths (2024).Courtesy Bleecker Street Media
Written and directed by Mike Leigh, Hard Truths is a compelling drama set in contemporary London. Leigh’s protagonist Pansy, (Marianne-Jean Baptsite) is relentless in her venomous anger and rages towards her husband, young adult son, her polar opposite sister, and anyone else who crosses her path. Pansy’s pain is palpable and Leigh and Baptiste have created a character who is unsympathetic and ironically and successfully empathetic.
Not unlike some of Leigh’s past films, Leigh began this project without a script and built the story and characters through months of rehearsals with the actors. This character study shifts between the various family members and the psychological repercussions of Pansy’s actions. The plot is unpredictable and there are no neat and tidy resolutions, thus resulting in a powerful and satisfying film with notable performances.
Banned in its home country of Vietnam, Việt and Nam, written and directed by Trương Minh Quý,is a poignant drama that confronts the legacy of the country’s war decades earlier. Set in the early 2000s, coal miners Viet and Nam are secret gay lovers, living in the shadows where past horrors hover in the present. Television news broadcast stories of the missing and the family members searching for information to help locate them, set up the pilgrimage Nam, his mother, Viet, and a family friend embark on to find the site of where Nam’s father was killed as a soldier.
As coal miners, the lovers’ job is digging into the earth; the metaphor of excavation and the unearthing of a horrific past is seen in contrasts of the lush landscapes and the dark caverns where a sense of timelessness unfolds. The film’s slow pace may not be for everyone, but it is effective and allows the characters time and space to explore their relationships and their generational trauma.
In the post-screening talk, Trương stated that he began the script in 2019 and how the casting process further enhanced the script: “I searched for people who have a real story that somehow matches the character’s story. I can then develop the character from their real stories. Like the character who is a veteran, he’s a real veteran and his confession at the end is based on his real story.”
Set in the near future of Tokyo, Happyend written and directed by Neo Sora, is a layeredcoming-of-age drama about the rise of political consciousness in a group of teens.
Neo Sora’s portrayal of these high school friends is relatable as it encompasses humorous events (students’ pranks) with an overshadowing sense of fragility as the ever present threats of earthquakes and an oppressive and invasive educational and political climate escalate. The unstable ground shifts as does the relationship between the two protagonists, childhood best friends, when they choose divergent paths.
In the post-screening discussion, Sora stated that it took seven years to write the script, and although this film was not autobiographical, his own life experiences were influential and inspired this work that he described as the rise of political consciousness.
Blitz, the closing night film of the New York Film Festival directed by British director Steve McQueen and two of the Main Slate films The Room Next Door directed by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvarand the documentary Suburban Fury directed by American filmmaker Robinson Devor,highlight three directors with varied voices and approaches to storytelling.
Written and directed by Steve McQueen, Blitz centers on the parallel perspectives of working-class single mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) and her 9-year-old bi-racial son, George (Elliott Heffernan), as they become separated within the maze of a city under siege of 1940s WWII London.
George’s odyssey to reunite with his mother is Dicksonian in a quest for survival. The amount of time (several days?) in which the plot unfolds is briefly referenced but it doesn’t quite seem accurate; perhaps it’s an intentional choice to reflect the blur and almost unbelievable events that unfold. The tone and images, and the thematic determination of a young male protagonist seen from his POV was somewhat reminiscent of Europa Europa directed by Agneszkia Holland whom I also interviewed for this publication. Both films chronicle racism and identity in WWII, and challenge the viewer to enter their respective worlds with a distinct vision.
McQueen’s previous film, Occupied City, a documentary with Bianca Stigter (both of whom I interviewed for this publication) also portrayed a capital city, in this case, Amsterdam, under siege by the Nazis. In interviews, McQueen explained that it was somewhat accidental that these two films were released back-to-back.
In press conferences, McQueen noted that “it was important to me that the movie be an epic. The reason it was important is because of scale. Seeing the Second World War through the eyes of a prepubescent child was important to give us a refocusing of where and who we are now. It is echoed in wars going on now…and with the recent race riots in the UK, the film has so much relevance to what’s going on now, even though it’s set in the 1940s.”
It’s interesting to note that currently on exhibit and running through the summer of 2025 at the Chelsea Dia gallery in New York City, McQueen is the featured artist. His piece Sunshine State (2022), a two-channel, dual-sided video projection is described as a story about McQueen’s father to examine notions of identity and racial stereotypes. This work, along with another video piece and his photographs, underscores McQueen’s range as a visual artist and filmmaker who consistently pushes boundaries of storytelling.
Blitz opens in theaters on November 1 ahead of its streaming debut on Apple TV+ on November 22.
The Room Next Door (2024).Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed the film, his first English-language feature, which is loosely adapted from the novel What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. The film centers on Ingrid (Julianne Moore) a best-selling writer and Martha (Tilda Swinton) a war journalist; their friendship is rekindled and tested when Martha makes a life-altering request to Ingrid.
At the press conference, Almodóvar stated that the book was unadaptable because of the many details, but was interested in one chapter in particular: “When Julianne’s character goes to the hospital to see her friend. I was interested in the two women reuniting, and their need to talk.” He added that he set out to develop these two women from “a generation that I love; the mid-1980s.” When discussing the inclusion of Damian (John Turturro) in the script he explained that he used his character to voice Nunez’s environmental concerns “and how dangerous neoliberalism is linked with the far right. It was important to give that message in a country that will have an election soon.”
The Room Next Door opens theatrically in New York City and Los Angeles on December 20, 2024, followed by a limited release in select US cities on Christmas Day, and a January 2025 wide US release.
In 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco and served 30 years in prison. Moore, the only person interviewed for this film, is the unapologetic subject of Suburban Fury a documentary by Robinson Devor, Moore tells her own story: from housewife (several husbands) and mother (several children), to FBI informant to would-be assassin, all of which are set against the backdrop of the era’s political unrest and militancy, including the Black Panthers, and Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army.
At the press conference, Devor and his team discussed uncovering relatively unseen archival footage, the choice to avoid familiar music soundtracks of the era, and filming Moore (over the course of 11 days) in unconventional locations such as a 1970s-era Suburban station wagon. Although the assassination attempt occurred almost 50 years ago, the film is timely.
The inclusion of numbers integrated between various sequences of scenes was an interesting device but the intention was unclear and didn’t have a clear payoff. Moore is the definition of an unreliable narrator of her personal story and her involvement in historical events, leaving the viewer to decide what is fact and what is fiction.
October 16, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Interview with ‘Invention’ Filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival
In this wide-ranging talk, ‘Invention’ filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez discussed their collaboration, mixing genres, shooting a low-budget Super 16 film, making a ‘dead dads’ project, and so much more.
It was a pleasure to speak with Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez at the Locarno Film Festival where their film Invention had its debut, and Callie was awarded Best Performance at the Locarno in Concorso Cineasti de la Presente. In our wide-ranging talk, we discussed their collaboration, mixing genres, shooting a low-budget Super 16 film, making a ‘dead dads’ project, and so much more.
About Invention
In the aftermath of a conspiracy-minded father’s sudden death, his daughter inherits his patent for an experimental healing device. Featuring archives from Callie Hernandez’s late father, Invention explores the process of grieving a complicated parent, and the filmmaking itself becomes a part of the process.
“Having both lost our dads, We wanted to explore the fictions and fantasies that often follow loss and allow us to bear disappointment – both as individuals and as a public in times of national decline.” – Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez
About the Filmmakers
Courtney Stephens is a Los Angeles-based writer and director. The American Sector, her documentary (co-directed with Pacho Velez) about fragments of the Berlin Wall transplanted to the U.S., was named one of the best films of 2021 in The New Yorker. Her essay film, Terra Femme, comprised of amateur travel footage shot by women in the early 20th century, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art and toured widely as a live performance. She is the recipient of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship to India. Invention is her first fiction film.
Callie Hernandez is an actress, writer, filmmaker and producer with work spanning over a decade. She was recently awarded Best Performance at Locarno in Concorso Cineasti de la Presente for Invention in August 2024. After starting out in music as both a cellist and in experimental punk bands in Texas, she found herself acting in her first role in Terrence Malick’s Song to Song. Later acting work includes Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, A24’s Under the Silver Lake, Pete Ohs’ JETHICA among others. In 2022, she founded Neurotika Haus Films, an in-house film studio, which yielded INVENTION, and longtime collaborator Pete Ohs’ upcoming dark comedy Untitled Tick Movie produced with Jeremy O. Harris. Her upcoming project is an Untitled Erotica Anthology.
Film still from Invention (2024).Courtesy Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez
The Interview
Kouguell:Invention is credited as “A film by Callie Hernandez and Courtney Stephens”: you wrote the script together. Tell me about your writing process and your collaboration.
Hernandez: The process was very collaborative. We were into the idea of making a film together. And it really all began when it felt right to make a “dead dads” film. Making a film about my dad’s niche medical realm, the machines he collected and his VHS archive was something I’d wanted to make. So eventually, our film became more in line with that idea as we developed it.
Stephens: When we started talking about it, the project was going to be much more of a straight fiction, exploring the aftermath of losing a father. Then Callie shared elements of her own dad’s world, which was fascinating and specific, and I was drawing from the process of dealing with my own dad’s failing business affairs after he died, and this kind of composite of our experiences took shape to form the fiction elements of the film.
Kouguell: Particularly striking is the film genre; it successfully serves this unconventional (experimental) narrative film. Would you define it as a fiction and documentary hybrid?
Hernandez: The narrative is definitely fictionalized and there are a lot of true elements. My dad didn’t invent a medical device — he collected them. This film is an experiment, maybe. It premiered at Locarno as a fiction and much of the narrative is highly fictionalized, but there are a lot of very close, true elements in the film. For example— my dad did not invent a medical device, but the electromagnetic healing machines are definitely something he collected and became central to the narrative. It’s a deeply personal fiction, I suppose.
Kouguell: Courtney, you’ve worked in both narrative and documentary. As the co-writer and director on Invention did your approach to the project change as it evolved?
Courtney StephensCourtesy Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press
Stephens: I think it meandered further into non-fiction as we worked, but it was exciting to work backwards: starting with the idea of fiction and then kind of documenting the creation of that fiction and drawing real stories out as we went along. I have an MFA in screenwriting from the AFI, but had gone on to make more experimental and essay films, so it was interesting to apply lessons learned in those realms to fiction.
In the film, we were working from an outline rather than a fixed script, with the exception of a few scenes. So there was definitely an element of working out these kinds of testimonies with the actors about who Carrie’s dad was, knowing they would be puzzled together into something that feels like this fractured portrait.
Kouguell: Callie, you have an extensive background as an actress, and you also starred in this film. How did this inform the writing process, and the incorporation of archival footage of your late father, promoting and discussing his inventions?
Hernandez: Yes, so, as I mentioned before, my dad did not invent these types of machines, but he had dozens. With some of them, one must be licensed by the inventor in order to purchase and use the machine. They range anywhere from $2k-$17k. So, my dad was an MD turned holistic healer in the early 90s. He was a hypnotist at one point, a monk in Bhutan at another point. After he died, my sister and I sort of re-discovered all these beautiful machines that we’d been privy to growing up with him, of course.
I knew his archive existed, but was surprised to find it all in one place in a storage unit. I shared these VHS tapes with Courtney and, then, slowly it felt like — ‘OK, yes, this is the film we’re making.’
Yes, acting has been my bread and butter for the most part for about a decade. I was acting in a TV show right after my dad died. In fact, I went straight to work after his funeral. I didn’t tell anyone. My dad’s death in combination with a mounting curiosity about making my own films led to my renting a house in Massachusetts with the intention of making my own films. As my good friend Pete Ohs put it, I was done with only acting.
That said, I studied doc photography and journalism in college, so these things are probably engrained. Making films and writing have always been every day for me — I’ve always done it since I was in my teens. I really just like making films in general. It’s all intertwined for me.
Kouguell: This footage is both powerful and humorous, subtly underscoring mythology and the American Dream, Anything is possible or is it? There is a layered tone of hopeful optimism and disappointment when it comes to Callie discovering who her father was and wasn’t. Please talk about this.
Hernandez: There’s a lot of mundane tasks involved when dealing with a death. Many of the characters in the film are very similar to interactions my sister and I have had with people surrounding my dad’s death.
But I think this speaks to a larger idea of conspiracy as a form of grief. We wanted to explore conspiracy and its origins. There’s both hopefulness and hopelessness, and a desperation in both.
Carrie faces a very fragile reality. She’s pulled toward her dad because he’s gone. She’s left with this essence of irrevocability and unanswerable questions. So her skepticism, over time, gets braided into a sense of hope or lack thereof. It’s about irreversibility, I suppose. This is what interested me most in making the film. Irreversibility and the things we try to change in real time that we absolutely cannot. But, for whatever maddening reasons, we do try.
Stephens: Yeah, we were thinking a lot about the nature of belief and especially how porous that becomes when one is in crisis. My sense is that America is on that same kind of shaky ground, in which something was promised, and people feel let down. It’s often so much easier to find a story in which things are not what they seem, or there is some secret adversary or obstacle, than it is to process the fact that you’ve been let down, that there’s nothing but disappointment.
Kouguell: Grief, one of the themes of the film, is something you both experienced, losing your respective fathers. It’s the catalyst of the plot yet you don’t fall into predictable tropes or a neat and tidy ending.
Hernandez: We exchanged books in the beginning. I gave Courtney Pitch Dark by Renata Adler, and Courtney gave me Basic Black with Pearls by Helen Weinzweig. We found that the books were pretty eerily similar; women inventing – or maybe not at all inventing – wild circumstances during a time of foundational loss. There’s something primordial about this state of mind. There’s a push and pull as you un-become yourself, in a way. You are suddenly, without consent, fundamentally different than you were before. We both lost our dads pretty suddenly. You’re very quickly haunted when this happens. So, this was also a part of why we wanted to make the film together, I think. This shared understanding.
Stephens: In a sense the construction of the film – and this word Invention – are, in a positive sense I think – exploring ways of changing the shape of grief through fiction. Maybe it goes back to the question of genre and the self-reflexivity of the film. The encounters in the film are building the character of the absent dad in ways that are contradictory, and that’s OK within the space of the film for these contradictions to exist, because we’re always acknowledging that they are these fictional propositions, so it’s an exercise in character. But in life, we want it to all add up, and it often doesn’t, it’s just layers upon layers, and that’s what we hoped to depict, rather than a linear process.
Kouguell: The actual invention or one of them, is about healing ‘energy’ – can you delve into this more?
Callie HernandezCourtesy Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press
Hernandez: There’s a great deal of specifics in terms of electromagnetic frequencies, energy and lasers, etc that are commonly argued as scientific approaches in the medical industry. It varies in terms of meaning. I think the term “healing” has developed its own, vastly varying implications.
My dad didn’t invent this (or any) machine (to my knowledge), but he had dozens. He believed in electromagnetic healing and lasers and frequencies. He was a big believer in energy, and even more so a believer in general. In reptilians. In parallel universes. Energy was always his core belief, both as a doctor and as a person. At one point, he lined the perimeter of our house in copper. We had copper pyramids in our backyard.
Then, of course, his interest in hypnosis, devices, etc. It’s true that, by the end of his life, he was selling these types of energetic healing devices for a company out of Utah. He really did use them demonstratively on feral cats in an attempt to show their increasing domestication. He was living with his girlfriend in their trailer in Texas and they had 17 cats at one point — all with names that began with ‘B.’ All of this to say, this type of medical technology is pretty niche, but varied. At the same time, there is a unique point where all these very specific interests intersect.
Kouguell: You shot on Super 16 on a shoestring budget. I imagine this also informed specific choices you made during the filming – both positive and negative.
Stephens: Trying to work out improvisational scenes while burning through limited rolls of film – I don’t recommend it! But it forced us to shape the scenes there and then rather than just exploring out loud with the hope of finding the film later on, a process which would have yielded something more impressionistic. The visual language of the film is quite direct and almost old-fashioned, and I think this helps given the abstract nature of some of the things we were exploring.
Hernandez: Definitely. I think we couldn’t imagine shooting this on anything but film. There was a moment we considered otherwise, but it didn’t feel right. And, of course, we knew the limitations of using film, which gives you an engine to keep pushing through with these limited resources. You have a limited amount of film and time to hone in on what’s important. But, yes, there are definitely pros and cons. A shoestring budget indeed. All out of pocket. We were the crew. It’s simpler, but not easier.
Kouguell: Final thoughts on your film that you would like to share?
Stephens: Thanks for the great questions! In film school, they will tell you “Raise the stakes!” Our film is small and kind of gentle, but the stakes for us were really high— our dad’s who we loved and these really difficult experiences in our lives. So the nice reception to the film gives me faith in what can be transmitted through cinema without too many resources.
Hernandez: I actually shot four films in this same house that I’d rented in Massachusetts with the intention of making micro-budget films that no one would ever really ‘allow’ us to make. This film idea was the one that felt closest to the things that I hope to continue making films about. Again — making films this way is simpler, not easier. But I like hard work.
Invention probably wouldn’t exist without this partnership between Courtney and myself. Yes — the responsibility I felt in terms of my dad, incorporating his VHS archive and machines and the overall essence of the film was huge. My sense at the beginning was that Courtney was the right person to collaborate with. And I think this instinct was right.
October 15, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Interview with Constance Tsang, Writer and Director of ‘Blue Sun Palace’
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 Tsangabout her poignant first feature filmBlue 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 StaffPick 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: Itstarts 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.
Constance TsangPhoto by Daniel Zvereff
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 ShengandKe-Xi Wuare 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.
June 13, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on 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
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.”
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.
Vulcanizadorahad 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
June 13, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview with ‘The Freshly Cut Grass’ Filmmaker Celina Murga, Presented by Martin Scorsese at the Tribeca Festival
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.
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 Grasshad 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
November 10, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off on And the winners of the 15th Annual Woodstock Film Festival are…
And the winners of the 15th Annual Woodstock Film Festival are…
On a picture perfect fall day two days before the 2014 Woodstock Film Festival awards ceremony, I sat down with Meira Blaustein, co-founder and Executive Director of the Festival.
Meira Blaustein: “It’s very easy to meet people here at the Festival; it’s casual, and friendly, yet high quality. One can have conversations with those who can potentially buy your film, buy your next film, challenge your creativity and elevate your creativity and push the envelope. The goal of the Festival is to bring together outstanding, thought-provoking, and passionate films. This year we have twenty-two world premieres. We have filmmakers from all over the world. I’m proud we have a spotlight on women in film; eight narratives directed by women is unique — unfortunately it is unique but it is. These women are smart, talented and strong, and their films are powerful. We have a lineup that dares to ask questions, and dares to be bold. It’s important to put together a tapestry that is reflective of the current state of filmmaking and a reflection of the current state of what is happening in film.”
The Woodstock Film Festival Award Winners
The Maverick Award for BEST FEATURE NARRATIVE: “Patrick’s Day,” directed by Terry McMahon
The Maverick Award for BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY: “Red Lines,” directed by Andrea Kalin and Oliver Lukacs.
November 7, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off on The Ms. Factor: The Power of Female-driven Content
A Panel Discussion at the Inaugural Produced BY: NY
Held on October 25 in New York City, the panel — The Ms. Factor: The Power of Female-driven Content — was held on October 25 in New York City, as part of the Inaugural Produced BY: NY event sponsored by the Producers Guild of America.
Panel Description: Audience demographics and buying power are changing. The power of females at the box office reigned supreme this past summer in terms of on-screen presence and audience turnout. A look at the 100 highest-earning movies of 2013 reveals that on average, movies with a female protagonist earned 20% more than movies with a male protagonist. So why the overall shortage of female protagonists and women filmmakers? What hurdles or opportunities does the current environment present for producers seeking to tell stories about girls or women?
The Ms. Factor: The Power of Female-driven Content | SydneysBuzz
The panel moderated by Cathy Schulman (“Crash;” “The Illusionist;” President, Mandalay Pictures & Women In Film LA) featured Kelly Edwards (VP Talent Development, HBO), Lydia Dean Pilcher (“Cutie and the Boxer;” “The Lunchbox;” “The Darjeeling Limited;” Vice President: Motion Pictures, Producers Guild of America), Stacy Smith (Director, Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative, USC Annenberg), and Lauren Zalaznick ( “Kids;” “Zoolander;” Media Executive Founder & Curator, The LZ Sunday Paper).
The printed information sheet ‘Females in Film & TV Facts: On Screen Behind the Camera, and Career Barriers Faced’ was available to attendees from panelist Stacy L. Smith.
An Overview:Onscreen Portrayals
Prevalence of Females across 100 Top Films from 2007 to 2013:
Percentage of female characters in 2007: 29.9% and in 2013: 29.2%
Percentage of films with gender parity in 2007: 12% and in 2013: 16 %
Percentage with female lead/co-lead in 2007: 20% and in 2013: 28% Behind the Camera Prevalence of Female Filmmakers across 100 Top Films from 2007 to 2013
Percentage of female directors in 2007: 2.7% and in 2013: 1.9%
Percentage of female writers in 2007: 11.2% and in 2013: 7.4%
Percentage of female producers in 2007: 20.5% and in 2013: 19.6%
Gender ratio in 2007: 5 to 1 and in 2013 5.3 to 1
Independent Film Behind the Camera
Prevalence of Females Behind the Camera at Sundance Film Festival 2002-2012
The Prevalence of Female Filmmaker across 120 Global Films from 2010 to 2013 in the United Sates: Directors: 0, Writers: 11.8%, Producers 22.7% and the Gender Ratio 3.4 to 1.
Moderator Cathy Schulman opened the discussion with the goal for the panel — to discuss some of the myth-busting in the industry and the deep set cultural ennui.
Cathy Schulman: How do we break the status quo?
Lydia Dean Pilcher: There is a perception in our industry that female-driven content is not commercial. We see that’s not true. Women are driving the conversation. We have a responsibility to debunk perception. Finance models are driven by foreign sales estimates and the myth is prevalent among foreign sales agents. We have new data for female-driven content internationally.
Cathy Schulman : Statistically 93 percent of foreign sales buyers are men,
Stacy L. Smith: On screen, less than one-third of the speaking characters are girls and women, and if you are trying to appeal to the women audience, you’ve lost proportion. Behind the camera, there’s a fiscal cliff; very few women are attached as directors in narrative films. Women are perceived as less confident to lead a production crew. Internationally, female-driven films made more money. The audience is there, but authenticity is lacking due to who’s behind the camera.
Lauren Zalanick
About Television and Cable
Lauren Zalanick: In television there is some movement that may be systemic or cyclical, we don’t know. The most powerful showrunner today is not the most powerful female showrunner, it’s the most-powerful showrunner — Shonda Rhimes. The heat around television programming now is based on strong female characters.
Left to right: Jenna Ricker, Leah Meyerhoff, Thelma Adams, Courteney Cox, Debra Granik
Film critic Thelma Adams moderated a provocative discussion with filmmakers Courteney Cox (feature directorial debut “Just Before I Go,” Friends actress, actress/producer/director Cougar Town), Debra Granik (Academy Award nominated director/co-writer “Winter’s Bone” nominated for four Oscars, “Down to the Bone” Best Director at 2004 Sundance Film Festival), Leah Meyerhoff (“I Believe in Unicorns” her debut feature premiered at SXSW 2014, previous award-winning short films have screened in over 200 film festivals), and Jenna Ricker (wrote, directed and produced her first feature film, “Ben’s Plan” awarded Best Drama at the AOF Festival, Distinguished Debut at the London Independent Festival, and honored with the Mira Nair Award for Rising Female Filmmaker).
September 30, 2014 / sucity / Comments Off on Susan’s: Highlights from the Locarno Film Summer Academy Master Class with Award-winning Director Agnès Varda
Agnes Varda with Stefano Knuchel at the Locarno Film Summer Academy Master Class
Stefano Knuchel, Head of the Locarno Film Summer Academy, invited me to sit in on his master class with the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival’s Pardo d’onore Swisscom winnerFrench film director Agnès Varda.
Known as the Grandmother of the French New Wave (a term with which she takes issue, as I cite in my Conversation with Varda).Varda’s film credits include “La Pointe Courte” (1955), “Cleo from 5 to 7” (Cléo de 5 à 7, 1962), “The Creatures” (Les Créatures 1966), “Lions Love (…and Lies)” (1969), “Documenteur” (1981),”Vagabond“(Sans toit ni loi, 1985), “The Gleaners and I” (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, 2000) and ” The Beaches of Agnès” (Les Plages d’Agnès, 2008).
Speaking to the group of international students, Varda shared her passion for cinema, photography, and installation work, with humor and honesty. Here are some highlights from Varda’s talk.
I asked Varda about finding inspiration and her writing process
I don’t search for ideas; I find them. They come to me or I have none. I would not sit at a table and think now I have to find ideas. I wait until something disturbs me enough, like a relationship I heard about, and then it becomes so important I have to write the screenplay.
I never wrote with someone else or directed together. I wouldn’t like that. I never worked with (her late husband, director Jacques) Demy. We would show screenplays to each other when we were finished.
When you are a filmmaker, you are a filmmaker all the time. Your mind is recording impressions, moods. You are fed with that. Inspiration is getting connections with the surprises that you see in life. Suddenly it enters in your world and it remains; you have to let it go and work on it. It’s contradictory.
Question from Student: How did you manage to navigate a male-dominated film world?
First, stop saying it’s a male world. It’s true, but it helps not to repeat it. When I started in film, I did a new language of cinema, not as a woman, but as a filmmaker. It is still a male world, as long women are not making the same salary as men.
Put yourself in a situation where you want to make films; whether you are woman or not a woman, give yourself the tools: maybe you intern, maybe you go to school, or read books. Get the tools.
On Filmmaking
We have to capture in film what we don’t know about.
If you don’t have a point-of-view it’s not worth starting to make a film.
Whatever we do in film is searching. If you meet somebody, you establish yourself, who you want to meet, what kind of relationship it is. Our whole life is made up of back and forth, decisions, options — and then they don’t fit.
When one is filming we should be fragile; listen to that something in ourselves. The act of filming for me is so vivid, it includes what you had in mind, and includes what is happening around you at that moment — how you felt, if you have headache, and so on. A film builds itself with what you don’t know.
Life interferes. You have friends. Kids. No kids. Then there is a leak on the wall. Everything interferes. It’s how you build the life with others.
Sometimes I go by myself to do location scouting. When I go by myself, something speaks to me in a place I’ve chosen and I know maybe we should take advantage of that. We have to be working with chance. ‘Chance’ is my assistant director.
