It seems you could not have picked a hotter cast.
Seriously! That’s what I keep thinking. I hope these festival programmers are looking on IMDB. But we should hear soon about [Sundance and Berlin]. I think after that you have a lot of bigger festivals. You have LAIFF, you have South by Southwest, but I think by January I’m going to be needing to show audiences the film because part of the investors’ screening that was so exciting was to hear people talk about the film. The whole reason you make films is to be able to communicate messages and ideas and themes and visuals that you want people to discuss amongst each other. So to finally be in an atmosphere where that had paid off was, after so long of working on this film, was just so rewarding and exciting.
Was the reaction from that first screening what you expected?
It was because what it is is a dark film. It’s a serious film. It’s peppered with some comedy but for the most part it’s very intense. The only negative responses were just people being like, “Well, it’s just not my kind of film. I like to go into bigger budget movies where I can escape and this is very thinking and very moody.” But then the people who got really all the underlying intensions in all that, just were in love with it. They just thought it was absolutely brilliant, which is such an incredible reward to me. Then you know you have the people in the middle who were basically like, “It’s extremely well-done, outstandingly performed and well shot and well directed, I’m just not quite sure about this...” And so while that can feel negative, it’s actually quite exciting because I get an opportunity to do what I wanted to do with this film, which was to create conversation and make people think. And maybe they didn’t think they’d like that but once they hear and think about it a little bit more, about the intention of this specific scene, they gain more respect and more interest in the film.
Hopefully what happens, at least my goal is is that it’s the kind of film that a week later you’re still thinking about. It doesn’t mean you have to be in love with it. Just the fact that your brain’s still working on it or some of the emotions that you felt while you were watching it are still hanging on your skin a little. So far we’ve had really strong feedback.
This film sounds as though it’s the polar opposite of your first film, “The Chester Story.”
Completely night and day. It’s so funny because “The Chester Story” we’re likely going to redistribute through Porchlight domestically - just sort of with all the hype around Teri Hatcher right now. The film’s getting a second life, which is really exciting. It’s weird for me though because they’re so different. I’ve grown so much, I feel, in my writing and my directing and sort of my style, that it’s strange almost to imagine “Chester Story” resurfacing because that was a very specific time in my life creatively and personally. As does happen when an actor hits it big, you can re-release things and make a profit and actually get more people to see your film. I mean, America hasn’t seen the film yet. Europe loved it. Which is frustrating, but it’s sort of weird to be dealing with both of these films at the same time because for me, “Shooting Livien” has become sort of a map of where I want to go creatively and who I want to be creatively.
I understood so much more this time around. The cast was just so mind-blowing to work with that I feel I really got a stronger sense of what I want as a writer/director and filmmaker. I feel so proud to sort of say, “This is what you can expect of me.” Maybe I’ll be able to tell a nice story like “Chester” again, maybe a dramatic story, but it’s going to be more along the flavor that you feel in “Shooting Livien.”
“Chester Story” was this amazing growing period in my life and a story that I absolutely needed to tell. But it’s always hard as a filmmaker because you look back and you’re like, “Oh God, can I do it again? Now that I know so much more, can I do it again?” The funny thing is people will say to me, “You’re so funny and cheerful and bubbly and ‘Shooting Livien’ is just so dark. Who would have thought that from you?” But I think that’s sort of the point. My short film, which I did years ago, was sort of the same thing which is to say that we all have two sides of ourselves and I presented that. In this particular film, we all have this dark side that can be very easy to get muddled with how you choose to live your life every single day. It can unify us in knowing that you’re not alone in sort of the privacy of demons. And so while I might be cheerful, there’s a dark side to all of us (laughing).
