“The other day, I watched Rohmer’s Autumn Tale, which just destroyed me. The internal drama of taking chances at happiness that you feel so deeply to be uncharacteristic of your personality – it hit home.”
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“I remember saying to myself, "I really got to get serious about this jacking off movie". So after The Golden One, I made it a point to figure this short out and it wasn't until I added the "haunted house" aspect of the short for me to finally feel the need to write and make it.”
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“Getting lost is inherently dramatic, and it creates a fish-out-of-water scenario that can be funny, scary, or thrilling. It's not something that happens a lot anymore because of smartphones, so I thought about what kinds of situations would lead people to actually get lost.”
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“I grew up in a rural town outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba, a pretty modest town with not a lot going on. I begged my mom to get me a camcorder from Sears, and my buddies and I would hang out and film dumb videos, we'd play assassins with airsoft guns and chase each other on snowmobiles, normal prairie kid stuff.”
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“Other things we were into or revisiting at the time also helped shape it, like Flannery O’Connor short stories, seeing Andrei Tarkovsky's work for the first time, and Unsolved Mysteries - that TV show is a big influence to us in general. The mix of true crime, psychics and UFOs was very formative.”
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“I had been curious to try live-action filmmaking for a while and I was honestly pretty burnt out on animation after making “Nevada.” The impetus for this film came about in the long and continuous aftermath of the 2016 election. I was dealing with some health issues and was feeling exhausted by the desire to fight.”
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“In no particular order: 1) The idea of a woman walking into a store and breaking everything on the display table, after having a pleasant interaction with the shop-person. 2) Being a competitive walker, unbeknownst to the other “competitors” (i.e. pedestrians).”
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“The biggest and most obvious challenge was filming with a three person crew in which two of the three are acting, and only one person has to focus on everything else. Luckily we’ve all worked with each other enough that we quickly got into a rhythm in terms of communication.”
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“When I was nine, I wanted a PalmPilot for Christmas because I thought they were really cool, but when I realized it didn't do anything, I got super bummed. The next year, I asked for a camera, and that went way better for me. RIP my PalmPilot alternate future. Also, I grew up Mormon.”
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“I knew when I started that I wanted to write a story that wrestled with gender, most crucially, one that examined emotional labor, that questioned whether strength has a gender, and presented in an acute manner the suffering that occurs under the codified gender norms we all adhere to.”
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“I'm interested in the passive competition that often develops between sisters, and whether that is an innate female quality or something societally enforced - or both. Of course not all sister relationships are the same, but you can be ruthlessly mean to a sibling and its generally acceptable.”
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“We were intrigued by what Mina described as the parallel experiences of Ismat and Narmin—both women are obligated to spend time in situations that are outside their cultural and social comfort zones. As women co-directors, we wanted to make a film that could portray the unique bonds of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters.”
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“[New Mexico] is such a cinematic state… that feels like every decade smashed into one. Inspiration was everywhere — the light is magic and our main motel location still had all the old phones and TVs from the 90s and these awesome murals in every room. We lucked out.”
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‘I think it’s particularly interesting in the latinx community where mental health is still so stigmatized and access to healthcare is limited and yet culturally there is the assumption that you will put yourself aside for your family. Yet as a teen or young adult all you want to do is be carefree, self-centered and anything but responsible.”
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“Both Nona and I had a clear idea of the look and feel based on the script - big sky country mixed with the neon lights of America's strip malls… The main character is always searching for a hit, so it was important to navigate the world through her eyes.”
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“I thought how truly amazing it is that women can undergo such an intimately physical and deeply personal experience all whilst running countries, working demanding jobs, caring for our families, and defying whatever level of pain and exhaustion currently consumes our bodies once a month.”
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“In 7th grade I won $150 from a poster contest, and I used the money to buy a video camera. I started making films whenever I could—for class projects, at sleepovers, with the kids I was babysitting. It gave me a newfound agency to interact with people that as a kid, I was constantly seeking.”
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“The initial ideas were all visual, as I started wondering what the world would look like in a hundred years. I wanted the story structure to be loose, like a bag of shells. Ideally each photo could stand alone but have space to breathe or open up.”
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“I interviewed a variety of bi/pan/queer people about their experiences living in a world that often expects a very strict binary of “straight” or “gay.” It’s something that routinely frustrates me in my day to day life, so I figured I wasn’t alone. I asked them: ‘What rules do you feel others expect you to follow, and what rules do you create for yourself?’”
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“I got into filmmaking when I received a job recording basketball games for my high school and my friends thought why not make a movie or at least try to. From there on out, I started recording short films on my iPhone. We would go to the movies all the time and I guess I slowly started to fall in love with everything about it.”
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