5 Questions with Olivia Ebertz

1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?

I first got interested in filmmaking after taking an experimental film class at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis as a 15 year old. I had my young suburban mind blown from watching films from artists like Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger, and couldn’t get enough from there on out. 

Now I’m a freelancer in the camera department and a documentary filmmaker. 

2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?

Ever since I started taking online Russian lessons, I was really curious about my Russian teacher. One-on-one language lessons have a way of really facilitating intimacy between a teacher and a student since it’s a lot of conversation practice, so you’re getting to know one another very well through that. But there also felt like there was this block or creative friction in our relationship that came from the differences between us that were facilitated in part by the internet. I wanted to explore our relationship and our culturally learned differences through the same platform we connected on (the internet). The web is not a neutral body and can do a lot to uphold already internalized information or values, for example, how Americans and Russians view Cold War history differently. There’s also this google car eye that seems like it should be an unbiased lens through which to view the world, but A) leaving out a lot of contextual cultural information, and B) has more limited access in Russia so when Americans use this street view tool, it can actually reinforce this orientalizing gaze. 

The TL;DR version is that the film came about in order to explore my fascination with my Russian teacher and to try to reify our hidden cultures and biases that are codified in the internet. 

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most, and the least?

The biggest challenge was trying to be sensitive to my teacher’s needs while not sacrificing the film that I wanted to make. I like to think it worked because she’s still my teacher. 

 4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

I’ll take a minute to shout out a recent co-art resident and friend, Anastasia Melikhova. Her work is fantastical and emotive and you get to explore earthy yet mysterious universes that she creates. Her films are some favorite shorts I saw recently. And then a favorite recent feature was Bi Gan’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” I felt like the structure challenged my own concept of memory and emotions in a frustratingly fruitful way.

5) What’s next for you?

I’m working on a feature film about sister cities. Wanna hear the log line? Here’s the log line: “Two rural cities in the Russian and American Northwoods are sisters, separated at birth. How do the lives of their inhabitants intertwine, harmonize and mirror?” It’s the second film in my Russian-American themed diary-trilogy. 

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http://oliviaebertz.com

Instagram: @mildoats