5 Questions with Sasha Lebedeva

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

I’m originally from Moscow and moved to LA at 18 to make movies (classic). As far as I remember I’ve always wanted to work in film. At first, I thought I should be an actress but after not getting any parts as a child actor, I decided that I should do everything else besides acting. I’m fascinated by every aspect of filmmaking: from early story development to distribution. But my big passion is writing & directing.

2) What was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?

I was inspired by FaceTime photoshoots that were very popular on my Instagram feed and I craved to create something aesthetically pleasing inside the home, too. I noticed that a window in my room emitted an amazing blue light before the sunset and one evening I set up a camera on a tripod and entered the frame for a self-portrait. However, I quickly realized that I’m neither a real photographer nor a model... So why am I even doing this pointless photoshoot?

But I still liked what I saw in the frame, so I decided to make a short film: weird, quirky, aesthetic. I’m inspired by anything awkward (in art or in life) and everything visually beautiful. So, I decided that combining the two can be my style.

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 to record the voice over without starting to hate myself. I didn’t know that before but, apparently, I can’t help but smack my lips loudly pretty much after every other word. So, I had to manually clean all this obnoxious smacking. That, together with my Russian accent, was very painful to hear and edit.

Even though I shot this piece myself, my favorite part is befriending other filmmakers and subsequently collaborating with them. I enjoy the process of getting together and discovering how the story wants to be told, shot, edited, etc.

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

 I had a sudden urge to rewatch everything by Hayao Miyazaki and I fell in love all over again. His films are surreal, visually stunning, whimsical, and yet feel incredibly familiar at gut level. If I could move into the world of “My Neighbor Totoro” permanently, I would. Hayao Miyazaki is my big love for life.

5) What’s next for you?

I wrote a feature dark comedy set in Moscow right after the Russian Revolution of 1917. It is inspired by true events when communism took over Imperial Russia, and the new Bolshevik government issued an order to optimize housing, converting big flats into communal apartments. My screenplay is about an idle aristocratic family who is forced to share their beloved Moscow apartment with a working-class family. I think that it is a very interesting moment in world history overlooked by cinema. I hope that this script will launch my career in some way.

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http://www.shotbysasha.com

IG: @lllsasha