5 Questions with Allie Avital
“The Naked Woman,” by director Allie Avital, is a haunting drama about the inner turmoil of a Russian immigrant who witnesses an unsettling incident. We asked Avital how the project began, transitioning from music videos to her first narrative short, and the open for interpretation meanings of the film…
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I come from a family of artists from Russia, so I was always dabbling in lots of mediums. I went to a liberal arts school where I studied “Integrated Arts” which included film and I got into everything from Maya Deren to Italian neorealism, but I don’t think I yet had the confidence or self-knowledge to really pursue my own filmmaking yet, so I switched to performance directing and installation. My work was more formal than it was personal, and it wasn’t until years later that I started playing around with video: first by making some bizarre (bad) video art, then transitioning into music videos, which has been my career path for the last seven years. It’s only from there, after learning the directing craft through the dozens of shoots I’ve been on, that I began evolving towards more narrative. So I guess I took a lot of twists and turns to get to where I am now, and did a lot of experimental work on the path to figuring out that I actually want to focus on more traditionally-rooted narrative.
2) What’s the origin story here - what started the project, and what were some of the first steps to get it rolling?
The Naked Woman was loosely inspired by some of the characters in my family as well as some true events. For my first short film I knew I needed to do something personal and dive into this world I know so well to kind of “get it out of my system.” I taught myself how to write a script, and first wrote the feature version. From that came this short, and I saved up a little bit of money I was making directing videos and waiting tables to pay for the shoot. I met Meghan Doherty (the producer) through Instagram when I posted a Story looking for producers, which is what started our intimate collaboration of the last few years. Without her, the short never could have happened; she took the small budget and limited prep time we had and helped bring this project to life in an ambitious way. Since we shot the short, several new feature drafts have been written and rewritten. Meghan and I were lucky to develop the feature version at the Venice Biennial Cinema College, and we are looking to shoot in Winter 2020.
3) I’d love to hear a bit about the production of this - how long did it take / what was your general experience? You’ve been directing mostly music videos, correct? How did you approach this project differently than you would a music video?
The film was shot in my parents’ country house upstate, which helped make this project more doable money-wise, and the (two!) DPs were my sister, and then a close friend who also grew up going to that house with us. So we had that on our side: the fact that we knew the location inside out and could essentially talk about the character and camera blocking without even being in the space. There were a lot of meta-aspects to this story being based on our families - for examples the DP Max shooting and giving some direction to a character that is based on him, or me struggling not to give too much “power” to the actor that was playing my own father. This is one of the difficulties of working on personal material - it’s a real skill to know how to disconnect yourself from the emotional weight of it (or at least harness it in a pragmatic way!) and look at it dramaturgically above everything else.
Like many directors who came up through music videos or commercials, I had a lot of resistance and fear around directing narrative. But when we started prepping for this, I was surprised at how similar it felt to my other projects, in the sense that directing is all about instinct and craft at the end of the day, and even though (of course) I would do a billion things differently if I could go back in time, I also felt like I generally knew what I was doing, and that narrative is a space I could just keep learning in and getting better at it forever. Part of what helped prepare me for the shoot are these filmmaking workshops I’ve been taking with Joan Scheckel, who has a unique approach and technique to writing and directing and has given me some essential tools for creating work.
4) There’s such a strong atmosphere here - what was the hardest part in creating your tone and/or were there any happy accidents along the way? Also, I’m curious to hear your interpretation of the naked woman, specifically how we come to see her in the final scene, if you care to elucidate. (If you’d rather not speak to this, I understand! No pressure)
I knew that I wanted that juxtaposition of a cheerful Chekhovian interior, with a more mysterious and Dostoyevskian exterior. (The feature will be shot in the winter so the roads will be even more icy and stark.) So I would say in this case the tone was pretty intentional, but there were for sure a lot of happy accidents - particularly in the casting. We found the lead actor, Andrei, just a couple days before we started shooting, and Valeriya, who plays his wife, was meant to play a different character until the day before the shoot when I realized that her chemistry with Andrei was so strong, AND it turned out they knew each other IRL from the Russian arts-adjacent scene. So even though I was essentially learning on the job, a lot also “came together” in a seemingly magical way as it often does in filmmaking when your team and intention is strong.
As far as the naked woman, in the short it really is meant to be open to interpretation. On one hand she is a real person and victim, on the other hand she is an objectified sex object, and on another, she is an apparition that signifies death. At the end, when he sees her again, she is the one comforting and “saving” him, despite the fact that all he wanted was to be the hero and save her. So in my mind, it’s less about her than it is about his desire and his shame.
5) What’s a film you’ve seen, new or old, in the last couple of years that has really resonated with you and why?
Asghar Farhadi’s films have been a real inspiration. Honestly all of them are brilliant, even his relatively mediocre new one with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem!
Bonus Question) What’s next for you?
Shooting the feature version of The Naked Woman! As well as a second feature and a pilot script I’m aiming to finish by end of the year. And making more music videos and commercials in between. And trying to stay sane and happy as a person!
Contact Info:
Website: http://allieavitalfilms.com
IG: @allieavital