This multilayered exploration of art, sexuality and feminism profiles artist/gamemaker/rapper Lena NW talking about her work and worldview. We asked “V/IRL” director Malia Bruker how the project started, what part of the process she enjoys the most, and what comes next for her…

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

I grew up in an intentional community in rural Indiana, so we didn't watch a lot of movies growing up. Just what we could rent from the library (Space Balls was a favorite, but I didn't see Star Wars until my 20's). So I wasn't all that interested in film at a young age. In college I wanted to be a journalist but we didn't have a journalism program so I ended up studying media production, where I started making documentaries.

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

I started teaching at Florida State University in 2014, shortly after the football team's quarterback Jameis Winston was accused of rape. Lena NW was an art student at FSU at the time and became internet famous in some pockets of the world for making a very weird and funny rap video ridiculing football cultural/rape culture (a small bit of it is featured in V/IRL). I found out about her just before she graduated and I was pretty blown away by her art, her writing, and her ideas--she's incredibly smart. Before talking with her I had a hard time understanding how someone just 10 years younger than me could have such a different relationship with the internet and feminism. So I asked for an interview, which I thought would be kind of a test. It ended up as the backbone of the film and we shot the staged visuals in Miami when we were both there one summer. There wasn't a fully formed idea when I started, which I think is why there was so much room for experimentation.

3) Generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most?

Right now I like cinematography the most. I usually shoot and edit my films, but if I have funding I hire an editor over a DP. For V/IRL I was able to hire a former student, Alison Johnson, to help with the editing, but post production was still a big challenge because I had shot the material in a rush. All the staged scenes were basically shot in one afternoon, because Lena was only in Miami briefly before heading to South Africa for an MTV Fulbright. In conceptualizing those scenes I had to think quickly about building visual environments that had some level of abstraction that could work with dialogue as it was edited, but that also allowed for the screen within screen framework. I guess it might sound like that was the hard part, but bringing all of that together in a coherent way in post was much harder. Joe Kalicki's score really helped with that.

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

As someone living in a small city without a lot of cultural outlets, I'm gonna give a shout out to MUBI, where a lot of my film viewing happens. Two recent films they programmed are Manta Ray by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng and Zombies by Baloji. Totally different projects but both have really strong artistic vision. Manta Ray is subtle and quiet but just completely pulled me into its world. Beautiful light, compelling symbolism and a really unexpected story of refuge. Zombies is just bananas. It's mostly a music video, and Baloji is both the musician and the video director (and producer and art director and on and on). It's shot in Baloji's native Kinshasa and deals with technology, old and new cultural collisions, outsider/insider politics, and lots of other stuff I'm probably not picking up on. The music is banging and the visual design is really complex and fresh.

5) What’s next for you?

I'm currently trying to get my recent film Batay La out to as wide an audience as possible. It's about a workers' rights movement in Haiti that has been active there for the past 25 years, and their message is so urgent right now. They're worker-led and their members understand the global capitalist system as the source of their exploitation, so their vision for a global workers movement makes a lot of sense. I'm also just beginning a new essay film called Collegetown about the trend toward cheaply made luxury student housing that benefits outside developers at the expense of longterm residents and communities. It's set in Tallahassee, where I live, but I think most residents of college towns can relate.

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Website: http://maliabruker.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/malia.bruker

Instagram: @maliajsquirrel