5 Questions with India Donaldson
The playfully sexy “Medusa,” by director India Donaldson, finds a young woman lusting after a marble statue while struggling with her human relationship. We asked Donaldson about her inspiration, working with her cast, and the line between reality and fantasy…
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
My dad makes movies, so I grew up around it. Without that exposure I don’t think I would have thought it was a viable path. Watching him work, I fell in love with the process before I fell for movies themselves. I have a memory of being probably 7 or 8 and trying to stay awake in a theater while he watched dailies. I’d try to spot the variations from take to take. The collaborative and meticulous process from beginning to end seemed endlessly exciting to me.
2) What’s the origin story here - what started the project, and what were some of the first steps to get it rolling?
I wanted to make a short about triangulated desire - about a woman who is a little bored by her partner and finds her way back into an exciting erotic dynamic through an attraction to someone (or something else). I thought it would be funny for the object of her to desire to be a literal object, and one that represents the ultimate idealized male form.
I had the image of a woman getting a dick pic from a marble statue, and built the story from there.
I knew I wanted to shoot in the Met Museum for the idea to work, so my DP Wilson Cameron and I devised a way to shoot that sequence more improvisationally (and without permission...) and still visually have it cohere with the rest of the film.
3) The performances are really great - can you talk a bit about your cast, and your working process together, in terms of preparation, rehearsals, ad-libbing, different approaches in different takes, etc. And what was the hardest scene to get right?
I first saw Hilary perform during a rehearsal for a dance/movement piece. I knew she would bring a nuanced physical performance to it, and for me that’s really where the story is being told - how she subtly mimics the gestures of the statues in the museum, experiments with the gestures at home in bed, recoils from her boyfriend, her body language while she sexts with Perseus in the bathroom, and her physicality when she finally takes control at the end. Hilary and I watched Viv Albertine’s erotic solo scenes in Joanna Hogg’s film Exhibition for inspiration.
All the dialog was scripted but I encouraged them to make it their own with the exception of a few lines. The story that the boyfriend tells is also about triangulated desire - he describes being both angered and excited by witnessing his girlfriend’s boss flirt with her. So, the content of the dinner table story mattered, but Rudy played with the words to make it feel natural. I wanted to deemphasize dialogue throughout, for it all to feel like background texture to the story being told through their physical performances and Hilary’s character withdrawing into her fantasy.
When we shot the final scene there was a wedding next door that completely screwed the sound, and also added a weird tonal element to the shoot - drunk people cheering and dancing while we were trying to get this quiet scene right. It’s a credit to Rudy and Hilary that they were able to completely stay in the scene, and to my sound mixer Sasha Mandel who fixed in all in post! In the end it’s my favorite moment, and it seems appropriate that Ginuwine’s ‘Pony’ was actually playing in the background while Rudy had to start taking his clothes off.
4) There’s a delicate balance of information you’re withholding - like who is this texting coming from, and what’s the status of the woman’s feeling toward her partner. I love how you handled that mystery, and I really loved the last bit…Can you talk a bit about the journey you were interested in taking the audience on?
For me the mystery is in service of keeping the story focused on the protagonist’s interior experience. We know she’s unsatisfied, but not profoundly so. When she withdraws into her text conversation for me that’s her withdrawing into herself & her fantasy. She gets in touch with herself and her emotional and erotic needs before she can circle back and inject that energy into her dynamic with her partner. The mystery is I guess a way of abstracting reality, or blurring the line between fantasy & reality in order to draw out and highlight her emotional experience.
5) What’s a film you’ve seen, new or old, so far this year that you really loved and why?
I recently revisited Love Streams. When I saw all those Cassavetes films when I was younger I thought they were very heavy serious films about big themes, and now I can appreciate how funny they are. Gena Rowlands pulling up in a cab with a dog, a goat, a duck, chickens, a parrot and two miniature horses!? Kills me.
Bonus Question) What’s next for you?
I’m hoping to next shoot a feature! It’s also about a love triangle. But with three humans.
Contact Info:
Website: http://indiadonaldson.com/