5 Questions with Hannah Peterson
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
Film, like a lot of things, happened later for me in life. I worked every service industry job under the sun, and took my time finishing college. I eventually worked in international development and at one point in my twenties, I was volunteering in Kenya at a children's home in which I was making short videos for the organization. It was there that moving image first piqued my interest, and where I began to become critical about ideas on representation. I went on to study documentary theory in New York and worked with Alex Gibney's production company before moving to Los Angeles to study narrative film directing at CalArts. It was there that I met Sean Baker, who became an important mentor - even to this day. Working on the Florida Project was the first major feature film set that I experienced. East of the River was very much a response to what I was learning working on Baker's sets.
2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?
The initial idea came from a short documentary I had made with the co-writer of East of the River, about school pushout in Washington, DC. Stacey (co-writer) to this day is a legal advocate for students who are suspended and expelled, and it is a well documented fact that those students are disproportionately students of color and disability. While making that documentary I was struck by how much these kids really did want an education, but were often met with unreasonable and biased institutional barriers to get it. I was interested in making a narrativized version of some of these stories, because I felt if these individuals weren't just seen as statistics, it could give an audience a better understanding of what it means when a kid is pushed out of school for the day, often as a result of zero-tolerance policies.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most?
The biggest challenge was having big ambitions and a very tiny budget, raised on Kickstarter, and wanting to be equitable in paying cast and crew. The creative process I love most is definitely casting, workshopping, and collaborating with actors on set to get performances we all feel good about.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
I just adored And Then We Danced by Levan Akin. The performances are incredible, and there is an aliveness to the film that might be a result of having to be on the move and having such a nimble production because it was sensitive subject matter to be filming in Georgia - but the result of these really improvised moments with a more constructed narrative just really transpires on the screen as honesty. I loved it.
5) What’s next for you?
Writing a few feature ideas out, seeing what bites first. I have a short film that was meant to go into production in April, but of course was put on hold and will pick up again in the new year.
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http://www.hannahloganpeterson.com
@hannahloganpeterson