5 Questions with Monica Lek
Monica Lek (front) with actress Odessa Young (back)
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
All I remember is 1997, I was 7. I had two distinct experiences that changed me. My parents used to go camping with this one friend and her 16 year old daughter. While they were at the beach, she would quietly come to me, rest her headphones on my ears and play Garbage, The Smashing Pumpkins. I was hooked like a junkie. I saw the life in front of me now with the missing soundtrack. Then, that same year, I saw Titanic in theaters and nothing was ever the same. There were no cinephiles or artists in my family. We didn't have a collection of movies or cable TV at home, but there was one channel on TV that played good movies and I would ask my mother to get me VHS. I found a world I could hide. I’d play films, mute them, put on my headphones and play music. It was the best feeling ever and I needed to nourish it. Then I knew that what will keep the flame ignited would be to learn how to create those moving images to give back to the world; both my inspiration and aim was learning the craft just so I could make someone else feel as good as it made me feel.
At 16, I moved to Barcelona and studied Art Direction and Advertising with a focus on photography, which culminated in my first book and exhibit as my career final project. Over those 4 years, I kept traveling to Berlin for my first editorial jobs until I finally moved to NY when I was 20. I spent almost 5 years in NY, assisting photographers like Richard Kern and Francesco Carrozzini while shooting my own stuff. I created a series of intimate street portraits entitled “My Neighbors.” The collection was featured in the US Embassy Hall in Washington, D.C., the Cervantes Institute in New York, at Art Basel, and in the permanent collection in Florida's Museum of Photography. I travelled to Cuba for 3 months with no phone or luggage. Just film. The desire to shoot a film came and instead of film school, I spent three years, focusing my lens on a transgender sex worker and a drag queen in Istanbul, resulting in my documentary Maruva (2017). In 2015, I traveled to Los Angeles to direct a music video and never left. I joined the International Cinematographers Guild (Local 600) and started working as a stills photographer.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
This was back in 2017. I started seeing the symbol of the serpent everywhere and started studying their various meanings and symbolism: the yin and the yang, life and death, the idea of the Ouroboros, Kundalini, the forked tongue, the list goes on. Something that really struck me was a photo I had seen many times, a depiction of the very well known Garden of Eden, and I realized that it's the snake who actually gives the apple to Eve. As I kept researching, I stumbled upon the snake handling practices of preachers in the gothic Pentecostal Churches throughout south rural Georgia. They conjure and preach to God while handling a poisonous snake who can strike at any time, letting God decide if they live or die. They abandon their physical body in a sort of trance, and gain power and life by being so close to death. I could relate to that. I knew venom can taste like an elixir and suddenly everything made sense. Sky opened to tell me now or never. All my life I was trying to draw the constellation which just showed up in front of me. I shared the idea with Brantley and we wrote the script in two weeks - a script that looks completely different from what you see in the final film. So different, in fact, that the original script could be re shoot and it would be a totally different movie.
Fun fact: In the original script Lessa (Odessa) is deaf. She wears a little hearing aid throughout the shoot. That’s also why Cass (Michael) uses the cinema marquee to talk to her. And you could hear her often reply "Huh?" or "What?". We had to cut any traces of her being deaf in the editing room precisely because we had to completely rewrite the story. We sadly had to sacrifice all the church preacher scenes. And some epic scenes with Lessa’s aunt in Florida.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?
The easiest part of the film was working with otherworldly talented humans like Odessa, Michael, Brantley and Matt. I was talking about this story for a long time, so Odessa and Michael knew everything even before reading the script. They knew their characters better than I. They never rehearsed. Telepathy at its splendor.
The generosity and hospitality of The Jones family and Zebulon theatre where we shot for free. And waking up in a 1930 greenhouse to my favorite faces and start shooting a film, we all wanna do, problems do not exist. Everything is just a challenge you have to solve as gracefully and effectively as you can.
The biggest mistake was expecting little finance from a production company that disappeared right on time. We had no money for the film and sorry for sharing this, but we were all in red numbers. The energy and love in the air were so alive and inspiring that we never ever complained. We just moved forward with what we had. Odessa was a protagonist alongside Michael and also the chef when we wrapped, Michael was acting and running errands, Brantley was doing sound cooking, cleaning, I was shooting directing cooking and everything else. Miracle Matt joined us for 2 days and did additional photography. That's it. It was timeless, healing, intimate, but of course, shit also hit the fan. So many mistakes were overcome - things like not pressing “on” on the microphone the first day or having to become a tripod myself. We welcomed it all!
Now comes the biggest challenge, left with all of the footage and no money for post production, while having to work every day on set. The material was something no other editor could take on and possibly make sense of, so Brantley and I signed a pact with the devil to edit it ourselves. We met every day at 6am before work for over 2 months to edit, but kept hitting a wall. We could not afford a studio, so we edited from home with a mini MacBook - not ideal. When finally by the end of 2018 I kept November free just to edit but my appendix bursts. I was not diagnosed in the states; they just injected morphine for the pain and charged me $10.000 after. Pain resurfaced beginning of 2019 and will only continue to get worse as I continue to work my ass off to buy time to finish the short. In summer of 2019, I finally had surgery to remove my appendix after months of pain. I finished ASH in the hospital room. I guess the snake bit me after all.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
Primer by Shane Caruth: This film is a puzzle, both maddening and fascinating. You’ll have to work a little to watch and absorb it. It’s a mindfuck, but it’s worth it. Carruth wrote, directed and edited the movie, composed the score, and starred in it. He knows what he’s talking about. That is to say: this is a film that only a scientist could have made. He even throws some valid new ideas out there about time traveling. It’s like Dogma Christopher Nolan. As if he never made it to Hollywood.
Ema by Pablo Larrain: Ema was streaming for 24h on MUBI and I remember going to bed and seeing I had 15 min left and I played it. And thank god I did. Ema hypnotized me. A weird kind of seduction was happening; it was refreshing and new. Scored by Nicolas Jaar, Ema’s aural presence is multi-layered, always opening a whole new horizon of feeling. It has the power of a Greek tragedy (Ema’s grandeur rivals Antigone’s).
5) What’s next for you?
It’s a funny question to face this year, but if the aliens don’t come first to rescue us, I’ll be working on set for some upcoming very exciting films, while finishing prep for my first feature. The story draws on my life with my grandmother, and I’m spending time with her, seeking to recapture old memories without corrupting them. For a while now, I’ve been trying to develop a more complex understanding of how human memory works. It’s a fascinating challenge trying to process our memories into something immersive and yet concise.
A real priority right now is trying to get back to work with my hands again and creating something outside the online world. Getting everything ready for a collaboration with nature and natural data.
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https://www.monicalek.com/ | IG: @mmonicalek