The Hollywood Reporter's Brande Victorian sat down with the contenders for a nomination for best Oscars short this year including Victoria Warmerdam ('I'm Not a Robot'), Daisuke 'Dice' Tsutsumi ('Bottle George'), Tusk: Olivia Mitchell and Kerry Furrh ('Ripe'), Kelley O'Hara ('Ripe'), Francisco Lezama ('An Odd Turn'), Moshe Mahler ('The Art of Weightlessness') and Hélène Hadjiyianni and Shanice Mendy ('Anaïs') in a THR Q&A powered by Vision Media.
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00:00:00Hello, and welcome to THR Presents Oscar Shorts. I'm Brady Victorian, and I'm joined today
00:00:11by six early favorites for Best Oscar Shorts. Thank you all so much for being here. Let's
00:00:16begin with director Victoria Warmerdam from I'm Not a Robot. Thank you so much for being
00:00:21here and for chatting with me.
00:00:22Thanks for having me.
00:00:24Of course. I want to start, you know, I love when a music, when the music in a film or
00:00:32a series feels like it's telling you something about the show before you begin into it. And
00:00:37I think that's spot on with the song Creep by Scala and Calanci Brothers. Can you talk
00:00:42about finding that song and deciding to have that for the intro and outro of I'm Not a
00:00:46Robot?
00:00:47I was actually listening to that version of the song when I was writing the script. And
00:00:50I was, when I was writing it, and I heard that song, I was like, oh my god, this is
00:00:54so perfect for the film. You know, it's like, the theme of it and like, you know, the text
00:01:03of the song, it's just so spot on what the film is. So yeah, pretty early. So before
00:01:09the film was financed, we started to like clear the rights for the song because it's
00:01:15such an important part of the film. I'm really happy that producer Trent from Ugg Motion's
00:01:22pictures could make it work. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I feel like the opening scene
00:01:27of this movie might be the most frustratingly relatable thing I've watched all year as this
00:01:33woman tries to correctly enter her capture data. But then the comedy aspect really turns
00:01:38into this dark suspense when Lara thinks she might be a bot and finds out she is. How did
00:01:42you come up with this concept?
00:01:44Well, that was literally how the film starts, because I was trying to get through some class
00:01:49and I was like failing for three or four or even five times. And I was like, oh, that
00:01:55would be interesting if this is actually how I find out I'm a robot. And then, you know,
00:02:02I had to laugh at first at that thought. And then I was like, oh, but, you know, my imagination
00:02:08took such a dark turn on that. You know, what if you are suspecting that your partner
00:02:15bought you as a robot? And what if your life is, you know, not what you thought it was,
00:02:21but it turns out to be a lie? Like it's so creepy and fascinating. And I think I really
00:02:27like the whole like sort of Truman Show aspect of it. Like, you know, what if everything
00:02:32around you is not what it seems like? That was really intriguing to me. Yeah.
00:02:37And there's this interesting kind of commentary about actually conversation about feminism
00:02:41that happens between Lara and Dan, where he kind of explains, you know, the bot design
00:02:46is for what men want, you know, which feels like a very pertinent kind of global topic,
00:02:51you know, at the time. Were you at all inspired by real life global events?
00:02:55Yeah, yeah. I think because, you know, it's such a at first it's such a funny thought
00:03:02like what if I'm actually a robot and I find out through a capture? But when I really start
00:03:08writing the script and think about it, like it is about, you know, the patriarchy and
00:03:12feminism. And, you know, what if you're not in a way in control of your own body, you
00:03:19know? And I think that's really like especially now it's such a, you know, you know, unfortunately
00:03:26such a still such an important topic to to talk about. And I think, you know, in a way
00:03:32like a genre film like this, like when it's a bit of like a sci-fi, dark comedy, I think
00:03:38that's the perfect vehicle to actually, you know, address topics like that.
00:03:42There's also this idea of Dan not wanting to grieve Lara. That's really baked into her
00:03:48inability to choose whether she lives or dies. And I thought that was really an interesting
00:03:52element and we don't kind of fully explore it. Is there like some backstory to Dan that
00:03:56lends itself or what does that nugget kind of inform?
00:03:59Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's funny that you mention it because it's such a small nugget
00:04:04of information, you know. But, you know, in the backstory, he had to deal with the passing
00:04:10of his wife, like his late wife. You know, and I think that's that's also what makes
00:04:17us human is that, you know, we have mortality. So, you know, and that also makes him like
00:04:25sort of understandable. Like that's the only, you know, proper way you can like buying a
00:04:30woman is never like a good idea. But when you have to deal with grief, it makes him
00:04:36more like relatable and more like you. You can understand it. Like, for example, like
00:04:43if I don't know if I would buy my partner, but, you know, I have a dog.
00:04:48But of course my dog can die. Like that's that's the thing that when you buy a dog,
00:04:53you are aware of the fact that, you know, you will probably outlive your dog.
00:04:57And I would definitely buy a robo dog if it was. So, yeah.
00:05:05And I also want to talk about, you know, Pam, who seems to be the orchestrator of this unique
00:05:10bot service. She's quite a curious figure, you know, at least from my perspective.
00:05:15You talk about her a bit. What does she represent in this narrative?
00:05:19Um, well, she represents the company that provides robo partners. And I'm just very
00:05:27curious to hear from you. Like when you saw the film, did you did you think that
00:05:32that she might be a robotist? I did. I did. I think so, too.
00:05:39Yeah.
00:05:46Sort of like the label of like, I don't know how to call this in English, but like
00:05:50the face of the company. Yeah. Yeah. But she has this like stoic presence of like
00:05:57kind of emotionless in a way. I was like, maybe she is.
00:06:02Yeah. And with that, you know, I wanted to get to the ending, which is,
00:06:07I mean, kind of a cliffhanger. But then I'm like, maybe not. You know, it seems that
00:06:12Lara may not make it when she decides to jump off the parking garage. How did you decide on
00:06:16that ending? Well, it's funny because, you know, usually I'm not super keen on like
00:06:24dark endings like that. But when I had like the idea of the film, like the start, like with the
00:06:30cap chest, I sort of immediately thought about that ending. For some reason, I just visualized
00:06:36that ending, which is quite dark, of course. And, you know, from that point, it was really,
00:06:43you know, the challenge for me as also the screenwriter to work towards that ending and to
00:06:49like because it's it goes from zero to 100 in like less than 30 minutes, like 22 minutes.
00:06:56So it was really challenging to go from that starting point to this point. But yeah. Yeah.
00:07:06Kind of to that point of, you know, zero to 100, like you said, in such a short amount of time.
00:07:10How did you find the right tone? Because I feel like this hit so many different notes
00:07:15in that short amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny because, you know, I'm
00:07:22I I'm always drawn to comedy. Like I don't think I could ever write like a full on drama
00:07:29thing because I'm I'm always looking for the comedy, you know, also in life. I think
00:07:33life is already hard enough and difficult enough. So please, let's find the comedy in it. So I think
00:07:40tone of voice, that comedy is it's something that it's like that's how I roll in a way.
00:07:45But I was really interested in like blending that with like more like the darker themes and also
00:07:52the absurdity and sort of like I think it's it's it's it's always important to find the right
00:08:00balance, you know, between drama and comedy, because I think those line is so thin in a way.
00:08:07I think drama and comedy like are super related in a way. And you can find drama in in humor and
00:08:14humor in drama. So, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. No, it does, because I
00:08:22mean, even as you're looking at Lara Khan at the end, like it's not funny, but you don't feel
00:08:27so heavy given what happens. Yeah. So I think that's true. And, you know, this short, I mean,
00:08:34has just kind of swept film festivals for the past years and gotten so many accolades. What has that
00:08:40meant to you? What kind of direct responses have you gotten that have most stood out to you from
00:08:45the film community? Well, it's funny, because when you start to make a movie, it's not like you
00:08:52you are making the movie to win awards. But when you do like it's just it you know, let's be honest,
00:08:57it's such a nice recognition and like it really, really helps, you know, but I'm I'm just always
00:09:05like in my best, you know, I just love it when I'm in the audience and I just really can feel
00:09:13like especially with comedy is it's so rewarding when you're in the audience and the audience is
00:09:18actually laughing. You know, you know, when you make a drama, like it's it's much harder to grasp
00:09:25like, you know, what the people around you are thinking. And I think, you know, comedy is so,
00:09:31you know, tangible in a way. So I think that's and, you know, after that talking with people
00:09:37who saw the film, you know, and I feel like it's I can sense that it's it's such a relatable thing
00:09:44also in terms of like, how do I, you know, fit into a role? And and, you know, what is it to be
00:09:51like an outsider and not, you know, feeling like that I fit in in society or whatever. So that's
00:09:58that's also, yeah, really, you know, touching in a way to. Yeah. And, you know, that hinges so much
00:10:05on the actors who bring, you know, your vision to life. How did you find your three leads for this?
00:10:12Yeah, well, for the main character for Lara, I casted Ellen Parra. And she is such an amazing
00:10:20actress. And she was on my radar for a long time, because I love her, you know, her timing and her
00:10:26ability to approach comedy in such a serious way. And so when I was writing the film, actually,
00:10:35before writing, I asked her, like, if she wants to be in this film, if I could write it for her,
00:10:40and she was super flattered by it. And she was like, Yeah, you can. So that was really like a
00:10:45luxury for me, like, so I could like, tailoring the script for her specifically. And that is how
00:10:52I actually usually like to work. Like, I really like to think about the actors before I start to
00:10:57write and like, really bring it to life with them in my mind. So the boyfriend, for example,
00:11:04was played by Henry van Loon, he's a Dutch comedian, and I worked with him before. So my
00:11:09previous two shows were with him as well. So you know, that was, yeah, that was a easy,
00:11:17easy choice. And then for BAM, for the robot company lady, she was also on my wish list.
00:11:25So yeah, it was just very, very well to work with all these amazing people.
00:11:31Got them all.
00:11:33Well, you know, lastly, I want to ask, you know, as soon as Lara found out she was a bot, I was
00:11:39like, Oh, this is a series. And I would binge watch this all day on a Saturday or Sunday.
00:11:44But then I saw, you know, the great news that this is planning to be adapted to a full length
00:11:49feature. What can you tell us about that? And kind of how you might build out the narrative?
00:11:55Yeah, well, when I was done with the short, like we finished it last year. But I wasn't done with
00:12:01like the characters and the whole universe. And I was just so curious to see what happens next.
00:12:07But also what happens? You know, how did they get there? Like, how did they get to this point? And
00:12:11how was their relationship built in a way? So yeah, I just, I just, you know, started to think
00:12:18about expanding that universe. And I think it's, it's really interesting to see, like how Lara's
00:12:25journey becomes a journey of like self exploration. And of course, she's like, sort of thrown into
00:12:32this identity crisis, and she really needs to find her own autonomy as a robot. And that's such an
00:12:40interesting journey to explore. Yeah, I'm excited to see more.
00:12:45For sure. I want to thank you so much for being here and sharing your insights and congratulations.
00:12:51Thank you so much.
00:12:55Now we're going to welcome Bottle George director Daisuke Dice-Tsutsumi.
00:13:00Hello, Dice. Thank you so much for being here and chatting with me.
00:13:03Thank you so much for having me.
00:13:05Of course. So I want to go back to the inception point, I was reading that the original concept
00:13:10for this film, which was developed by Japanese comedian, Akihiro Nishino, was going to be more
00:13:15comedic in nature and take on this form of a miniaturized human kind of stuck into this bottle
00:13:22after a night of drinking too much. But the story you actually tell is much more somber and one of
00:13:27addiction through the eyes of a child. Can you talk a bit about that first idea and how it morphed
00:13:31into what we actually see in Bottle George?
00:13:35Well, when I first read Akihiro's initial idea, I was fascinated by this fun idea of a character
00:13:45who is stuck in a bottle of alcohol. It took us a little while. It was initially a children's book
00:13:54project. But then over time, we said, let's turn it into a short film. And when I asked Akihiro that
00:14:07I think there is more to this story that we can dig into. And I shared my personal experience,
00:14:15which I believe a lot of people might have directly or indirectly of, you know,
00:14:23someone close to you who struggle with a problem of addiction. And I certainly had a problem with
00:14:30someone who was very close to me, was struggling with it. And I asked him if he is willing to
00:14:39turn the story into something a little bit more meaningful to a lot of people's lives.
00:14:44And when I shared that story, Akihiro, too, had a similar personal experience. And both of us said,
00:14:52hey, let's make a short film that is meaningful to our personal lives and hopefully to a lot of
00:15:01people in their lives. Yeah. And kind of an extension of that. I mean, you've just explained
00:15:07the why, but I was so struck that Akihiro almost entirely self-funded this project. And, you know,
00:15:13I'm curious why that piece was even so important for you to also take this on and the equal
00:15:19importance to direct. For me, Akihiro was someone as a director who can't ask for a better partner
00:15:30because he goes for something he believes in. It wasn't necessarily something he calculated
00:15:37commercially how this is going to bring back the investment or anything like that. He felt there
00:15:43was a meaning to this project. And he and I kind of hit off really well in terms of just, hey, not
00:15:51running away from this very, very sensitive subject matter. That being said, we both said
00:15:57it has to be entertaining. It cannot be sad and so depressing. It was very important for us to
00:16:04reach the audience of all ages that this subject matter can be in their conversations,
00:16:12not to turn away people. So Akihiro being a comedian and me being an animation director, a lot of times
00:16:18family stories, we tried really hard to make sure Bottle George is palatable for people of all ages.
00:16:27And I'm just realizing, is that the figure behind you from the film? That's it. Yeah.
00:16:33The actual puppet of the girl Chako. And you can kind of see how, you know,
00:16:44we changed the parts of her face, every frame to make expressions move. And our animators just
00:16:54animated frame by frame with this beautiful puppet. Wow. Well, I want to jump right into a
00:16:59little bit more about the animation process. Then, you know, how did you decide on stop motion?
00:17:05What were kind of the unique challenges and opportunities with that approach?
00:17:09I think in today's day and age where a lot of things are going digital and I myself come from
00:17:183D graphic animation background. And in a way, stop motion where you really have to have animators
00:17:29real fingers and tactile sort of a quality to realize became so rare in a sense. And in a sense,
00:17:40but also we felt it's more of a sustainable model moving forward because we need human touch
00:17:49to continue to, you know, live in the world of artificial intelligence, you know, dictating over
00:17:57what we do in our lives. And I just wanted to do a stop motion project just period before even we
00:18:05started this project. I asked Akihiro, like, hey, you know, a character stuck in a bottle
00:18:13and this beautiful world of all the hills sort of symbolizing how difficult it is to
00:18:21climb up the life issues and all that stuff. I think it would be amazing. It would be perfect
00:18:26to do a stop motion only to find out later that, you know, when we worked with DORF studio,
00:18:32they said this is like the most challenging story for stop motion. And of course, DORF,
00:18:39our Japanese stop motion partner, made creative, incredible creative solutions to
00:18:47make realize this film beautifully. What made this so hard? I imagine,
00:18:52I mean, the character in the bottom might've been a big kind of challenge, but can you speak to that
00:18:56a bit? We animated pretty much everything in this film, stop motion. So the, one of the most
00:19:04challenges, one of the biggest challenges we had was the liquid, the whiskey inside the bottle.
00:19:12And that, I didn't know how they would have done, like we thought about, oh, should we just do that
00:19:18part of CG or should we do that in 2D? But they actually animated water on glass and composited
00:19:27a liquid on top of the glass later to make it look like there's a liquid inside. And it was
00:19:34beautifully done, but it was a very, very, very challenging project. Yeah. And you talk about
00:19:39even settling on the name Bottle George and kind of what does that creature in the bottle represent?
00:19:44I believe it's the sort of a symbolic darkness that the child, actually her, she sees
00:19:54in her father. So it's a symbolic character. Does it exist even? We don't know. I kind of leave that
00:20:02up to the audience, but she sees it and she's waiting for the little character George to come
00:20:08out of the bottle, symbolizing for her father to come back to her life. Okay. Talk then about,
00:20:15you know, the ending, very emotional kind of moment where the father comes and embraces her.
00:20:21You know, what are you communicating in that scene? I think it's really important for us,
00:20:28Akihiro and I in particular said, we're not trying to solve the problem of addiction in this story
00:20:36because we don't know how. We both had experience in our lives that we didn't really come up with a
00:20:42solution to it. It was really important for us to recognize that is a part of our lives in our
00:20:48society and it's very human. But what was really true in this story, and I think in our lives, is
00:20:56the power of family, power of love, the loved ones, who no matter what the problem you might have,
00:21:05they might be waiting for you. So that's what we are trying to convey in the story.
00:21:09And I was really struck by the fact that, you know, there are some kind of verbal expressions,
00:21:14but there is no dialogue. Talk about coming to that decision and how do you think that
00:21:19strengthens the narrative? You know, we love, especially in the form of a short film narrative,
00:21:26that we can bring a lot of that sort of pantomime to tell the story. But in particular of this
00:21:35story, Chako, this girl who is not necessarily a very expressive character because of the
00:21:41circumstances that she has to endure. And George himself, you know, it's the symbolic character of
00:21:50her projection of her father who doesn't even understand what he is himself. So for them to not
00:21:59being able to express verbally kind of fit for their story. And hopefully we were able to
00:22:08communicate what we needed to communicate with the audience without dialogue. Yeah, absolutely.
00:22:14And I was reading one of your earlier interviews and you said, you know, maybe some people will be
00:22:18upset kind of that you're telling this story. What actual response have you gotten from audiences
00:22:23to the story? Even within our crew, there are some people who felt this story was a little too
00:22:35difficult for them to process, you know, which is totally understandable.
00:22:41But a lot of people we felt watching by, you know, watching this film communicated with us that they
00:22:53they were ready to talk about it. They were ready to just recognize that is a problem that we all
00:22:59face. One of the most misunderstood things about addiction is that the people don't know it is a
00:23:05disease. It's it's it is a medical condition that people need proper professional care.
00:23:14And just that realization alone, I feel like we achieved, even if people might have felt
00:23:22uncomfortable watching it, we feel like we have achieved that the things that we wanted to share
00:23:28with our audience. Well, that was what I was going to ask last of what, you know,
00:23:32you're most proud of accomplishing with this movie. I think the the, you know, the artistry,
00:23:42you know, of the stop motion and and the artists, each artist kind of love and passion that went
00:23:49into the story was along that alone to me just makes me so proud. And I could cry just thinking
00:23:56about it, you know, but also film is always a way of having a conversation between creators and the
00:24:06audience, the filmmakers and audience. And it's not even about like making a statement or sharing
00:24:16our opinion. That's absolute. I think it's really important for us to just have a conversation
00:24:22and just to hear sometimes the reaction from the audience is enough for us to feel like, oh,
00:24:27it was worth it. It was worth it. Well, thank you so much for being here with us and sharing.
00:24:33I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Appreciate it.
00:24:38Next up, we have right. Directors Tusk, Olivia Mitchell and Kerry for an executive producer,
00:24:44Kelly O'Hara. Well, hello. Thank you all so much for being here. I want to start with the
00:24:51cinematography because I think this is just such a visually beautiful project. It literally looks
00:24:56like a painting come to life. So I would love if you could talk about, you know, where did you film
00:25:01this series? What was your guiding principle in terms of look and feel of right? Yeah, thank you
00:25:06so much. It's so funny you said that because right before this, we were actually talking with our DP
00:25:10doing some before after like he sent us a bunch of really beautiful Spanish impressionist paintings
00:25:17as we were going into our prep. And we're just thinking we were putting them side by side.
00:25:21It's really cool to see. It's funny you said that. But yeah, no, we shot in really beautiful Catalonia,
00:25:30which also helped our cause. You know, we had the most gorgeous towns and scenery to capture. And it
00:25:36was it was really cool to be able to do that. Yeah. And I think like we I mean, we we were working
00:25:40with like limited resources, limited budget. And we we really wanted to like heighten. We didn't
00:25:44want to feel so naturalistic. I think a lot of times when you think of like a coming of age film
00:25:49or even a lesbian coming of age film, it's very naturalistic. And we wanted to like heighten that
00:25:53to some degree, partly because that's our style and what we really like, but also because it's
00:25:57something we hadn't seen. And so we're trying to discover that together. But with limited resources,
00:26:01we're like, how do we get this like high key lighting look in some areas? And so we ended up
00:26:05using a lot of mirrors, which is a fun thing to play with. And we use the sun and we'd shoot at
00:26:10the mirrors and it became this big, giant light that would cost so much money. But we were able to
00:26:14kind of get it into the specific spots that we wanted and really just use the resources we had
00:26:19like in the location to to to work with. Amazing. Oh, and I want, you know, tell us what is ripe
00:26:26about the concept. What inspired this story? Yeah, I mean, we really wanted to see we were
00:26:33obsessed with this kind of like niche genre of like a dreamlike romance, which is like,
00:26:38you know, calling by her name and like before sunrise and these like these these romance
00:26:43stories that kind of take place in this like limited amount of time in like kind of a space
00:26:46that feels real, but it feels like it's detached from the world. And we hadn't really seen something
00:26:51like that for lesbians. And we wanted to make something. And, you know, we were we were traveling
00:26:56and had we're really inspired by the the like landscape and we really loved that type of
00:27:01architecture where we were and ended up writing the story. And then we also met Rita, who was
00:27:07who plays Gloria when we were traveling. And we're like, she's so interesting. And we love like
00:27:12her energy and just like how confident and how much pride she had in herself as a young person.
00:27:19And so those kind of things came together and we we came back to shoot the film. Yeah. And to answer
00:27:25your question about what it's about, it's basically about an American teen who goes to Spain and
00:27:28accidentally breaks someone's arm and then falls for her. Yes. Kelly, you know, when did you first
00:27:37come on board? What made you want to come on board for this project as a producer?
00:27:41Yes. So I came on board. What was it? I'm like so lost in even what day of the week or year
00:27:47or month it is. But spring of 2023. Right, guys. Yeah. That's right. Yes. Yes. Correct.
00:27:57And I got brought onto the project by the other executive producer, one of the other executive
00:28:03producers, Luke Anderson. He's a good college friend of mine. And he was already on the project.
00:28:07And he called me up and he said, listen, I have something that might interest you. It's a lesbian
00:28:13film with soccer ties. And you're the first and only person I could think of to call. And I said,
00:28:20I've never executive produced before, but it sounds amazing. And I'm interested. And then
00:28:26my fiance and business partner, Cameron, we sat down with Tusk and with Luke, and they ran us
00:28:31through their vision of the project. And when we got off that call, Cameron looked at me and said,
00:28:36that's incredible. I want to be a part of it. We need to do this. And here we are today.
00:28:42So can you talk about as you brought up soccer, the importance of this queer coming of age
00:28:47love story against the backdrop of football and what it adds to the genre of LGBTQ plus stories?
00:28:54Yeah, I think for me, I wanted to be a part of it because
00:28:59I am a gay woman. I've played a lot of soccer. And the story really resonated with myself and
00:29:07with Cameron and how soccer allowed these characters to express themselves in a way that
00:29:14they weren't doing off the field. And I just think that the way Tusk used soccer in this
00:29:20film was really interesting. And for me, I'm all for however much lesbian cinema and content we
00:29:31can get out there, the better. But the fact that it had soccer was kind of the kicker for me.
00:29:37Okay. And what inspired that element for you two?
00:29:41You know, the soccer thing was an interesting piece, because we feel like we've seen a lot of
00:29:45it where it's this pretty triumphant story of trying to go pro and win medals. And we hadn't
00:29:53really seen it in a pickup soccer way that we really wanted to see that we felt was more
00:29:58relatable because we played soccer through our lives, but never at a professional level.
00:30:04And so we wanted to portray that in a film. And also, yeah, what Kelly was saying to show
00:30:08these characters dynamic and the element of soccer that doesn't require language, that you could be
00:30:13anywhere in the world and the rules apply. And you don't have to speak to each other to know
00:30:19what's going on. And Sophie is such a shy character. And it's like, we always joke,
00:30:23it's like, you can be the shy person who then goes on the field and like gets the most yellow
00:30:26cards. You know, it's like, I just don't know what's going to come out. And physicality is
00:30:31such a great way to show suppressed tension. And, you know, at the end of the day, this is a story
00:30:36about somebody who's trying to come out with who they really are in a fuller sense. It's something
00:30:41that all of us can relate to. And, you know, Carrie and I had our own version of that story.
00:30:46We date each other and it took us like a decade nearly to come out and actually tell people that.
00:30:51And so having met when we were teens and now being 32 with a queer coming of age story
00:30:58shows that sometimes it takes a little push, a little extra effort. And we wanted soccer was
00:31:02just such a great way to show kind of something that you're not ready to verbalize, but are kind
00:31:07of inside of you. And I love, I mean, the title, right. And like, you know, we see Sophie with that
00:31:12peach, you know, from time to time that certainly feels like a nod to the film's name, but how did
00:31:17you settle on ripe as the title? No, it was. It's funny because at the end of the film,
00:31:24there's like a clapperboard that you can see on it. But, but don't look at it.
00:31:31But yeah, I mean, we, the old name used to be a little bit more of like a negative connotation.
00:31:36It had like a little bit more like pain to it. And we wanted something that felt optimistic.
00:31:41And Olivia ultimately came up with it. But I think it was like, we liked how it felt like it was
00:31:45the word feels like coming of age in itself. And this idea of like ripening into yourself. And it
00:31:51just feels so optimistic. And we felt like the film felt pretty optimistic. And it felt like it
00:31:55related. Well, it didn't used to be though, like Carrie and I, like I mentioned earlier, we've had
00:31:59such a long journey that it's like when we first started writing this film, it wasn't so vibrant.
00:32:06It didn't have the ending with the joy and the hope that the short has now. And we rewrote the
00:32:13script time and time again, kind of like fighting our natural instinct, because all we really see
00:32:17is lesbian stories ending in pain. And it's so strange, because we just found ourselves kind
00:32:23of doing that. And then we had to really sit back and question ourselves and be like, wait a second,
00:32:27like, we want to write the ending we wish we had when we were 17. So I don't know, we just,
00:32:33um, we went from a painful story with a painful title to a story that felt a little bit more
00:32:39hopeful and triumphant and changed the title to fit that, you know,
00:32:44or my title change came at the end of our head. Like, yeah, we were towards the end.
00:32:50It was the whole thing was we were able to see and came for Kelly, we were calling every few
00:32:56weeks, like, there's a new idea. No, I, I, I like think back fondly on how we traverse in the
00:33:04journey we went on around the name. And I love that we ended on right, because I just think that
00:33:08it encapsulates everything that the story is and is about and is I just I love that it's called
00:33:14right, and that we ended there. It feels right.
00:33:18I also want to kind of talk about behind the scenes a bit, a bit, because I read that a lot
00:33:24of the cast and crew crew, I'm sorry, we're also queer and kind of just having that safe space,
00:33:30I think, for people to tell their stories in that way, too. And how unique of an experience
00:33:35was that for you all as creators? You know, what did that bring to the story?
00:33:39Yeah, yeah, there were I mean, there's a so cookie Lucas, who is the producer on it,
00:33:45was like, we've been producing stuff with her for such a long time. And she was really pushing
00:33:48us to do a narrative story. So we're doing commercials and music videos, and she was
00:33:51working with us. And so she like really helped bring us into that narrative force us into that
00:33:57narrative space. And then like, once we started working with Spain and bringing producers on there,
00:34:02we were finding other queer people. And there's this one moment that that I think was like really,
00:34:06really impactful on set with like, it was after the first day, which we shot the kiss first,
00:34:11it was the first scene we shot. And we were like, in back, we also were living in the house that we
00:34:18shot at. And so we were back at the house with some crew, and it was like completely dark.
00:34:22And we were watching the footage on a laptop, and everyone was crowded around the computer.
00:34:26And we look over and Laura, who is another one of our producers from Spain, was just like crying.
00:34:31And she's like, I've never seen this before. Like, this is like an image that just doesn't exist.
00:34:36And it was it was it takes a queer person to kind of point out. Sometimes when we're making
00:34:41something Karen, I are so suppressed at times that we just kind of like power through our
00:34:44scenes and like move on. And like, we need people around us who are like, guys, wait,
00:34:48like that was really why we're doing it's just a new image. And it was it was really cool. And
00:34:55I think that that like started off the rest of our shooting with this, like, everybody just felt like
00:35:00we had something to say together. And queer people are encouraging us. And I think naturally,
00:35:08like queer people gravitated to the project to like a lot of the crew who came out of the
00:35:13woodwork to help us because, you know, it's a hard project. It's a short film, you know,
00:35:18you have to really want it to work on a short film. I think, naturally, we were so lucky to
00:35:22attract a really queer diverse group of artists that made this possible and made this better than
00:35:29we could have ever dreamed of. Yeah. And to that point, talk about then once you put it out into
00:35:34the world. I mean, from my searches online, such a strong, positive response. People are like,
00:35:39I want more of this story. I want more from you. What is our rabbit? Yeah, we need content.
00:35:47I mean, yeah, we're just we're like, it's so simple for this campaign. It's just queer joy.
00:35:53Women's joy is such a void in culture. And when you really look for it, it's like,
00:35:58oh, my God, like, I don't know, the bar is low. We're like excited to enter the conversation.
00:36:04It's a cool hearing people come up and say how much they're related. And it's also cool, too.
00:36:08There's a lot of not queer people that come up and say that they can relate to it. Because I
00:36:12think at the end of the day, it's about having a crush at like, as a teenager. And no matter
00:36:17like whether you're gay and closeted or straight, and just like don't know how to express your
00:36:22feelings. It's kind of a similar universal experience. You wouldn't believe how many
00:36:26older white men came up to us after screenings at festivals. I can relate to this. That's the
00:36:31goal, right? That anyone can read the whole world. And I think it's even broader than a crush. I
00:36:36think it's just about a story about not being able to express what you mean. Yeah, like getting to
00:36:41your subtext. Yes, absolutely. Well, on that note, very last question. Will we see a feature length
00:36:49story? Are we going to finish this narrative? Yes, we're manifesting? Yeah.
00:36:53Okay. 100%. Yeah, we're trying to shoot in the early summer 2025. And we're in the middle of
00:37:01some really exciting conversations and have been very excited by the support this little
00:37:08gay short film has gotten. So hopefully we will be bringing a feature to you guys.
00:37:13So appreciate the support and the questions and just the engagement with it. It means
00:37:17more than you know. Well, thank you. We appreciate you sharing with us and congratulations.
00:37:23Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Next up, we have director Francisco
00:37:28Lozama from An Odd Turn. Well, hello, Francisco. Thank you so much for being here.
00:37:34Thank you very much. This film is such a unique story of intuition and romance and money.
00:37:44How did the concept for An Odd Turn come to you? Well, the concept came up from reality.
00:37:51Here, I live in Argentina, and the film that I made, I wanted to, when I was writing it,
00:37:58I wanted to depict the inflation situation here in Argentina, that it's really extreme.
00:38:05And this relationship with or the things that are related with clairvoyance, intuition and romance
00:38:15because I was working with some elements that here are really common. Since we are struggling
00:38:23with a lot of inflation, there's a lot of adivinatory and clairvoyance elements in
00:38:30Argentine society. And that's something that I wanted to relate now, the system, the economy
00:38:37with the divination and the clairvoyance system. So it's a little bit weird, the short film,
00:38:46but I wanted to do that. And that was the idea. And the idea of the main character,
00:38:51that it's a security guard, it's something that came up because I used to live, I used to work
00:38:58in a museum. And inside the museum, I used to work in a film theatre that ran inside a museum,
00:39:05like a film society. And when the museum closed its doors, the security guards were there.
00:39:13And I was working for the film theatre and I used to observe the security guards and everything that
00:39:20passed with them, that they were relaxing a little bit because the security guards,
00:39:25when the museum was active and the people was coming, they were acting like responsible.
00:39:34And when the museum closed its doors, they relaxed. So it was the idea of depicting a security guard
00:39:41that was also playing with the pendulum came from me, from observing that kind of characters.
00:39:50Okay, got you. And I wanted to, well, I was going to ask because I've read that some of
00:39:55the, it's a mix of biographical and kind of fantastical elements, but also that you were
00:40:01watching silent films for inspiration. How did that assist your writing process?
00:40:07Yes, that's because I worked in the film society here in Argentina as a projectionist.
00:40:13And this is like one of the theatres that screen films in celluloid, like, and screen
00:40:20films that are silent films, silent American films, silent French, European films. And that's something
00:40:27that I'm really interested in because I'm a film history teacher here in Argentina too,
00:40:33because we have inflation, we have to have like plenty of jobs. So I kind of started
00:40:43to relate with these kinds of films that are more about like documenting actors,
00:40:50you know, like the silent films. They are not much about the plots that are totally complete
00:40:57with a psychology and the arcs, but are more about like trying to document some like sparks
00:41:05in the actors, like some moments. I don't know if you felt that when you saw the short, but
00:41:13I tried to work with this kind of method, like to register something that is exceptional in the
00:41:19gaze of the actors, like something that is alive, you know, like the city, the elements of the
00:41:27chaos of the city, the chaos of the little gestures in the actor's gaze. It's something
00:41:34that I learned by projecting and I learned by watching silent films. I don't know.
00:41:41Yeah. Well, I mean, to that point, like Lucretia, I think is just fascinating. Like I want to see
00:41:47more of her. I want to know more about her story. You know, who is she in your words?
00:41:53And why was Leila Motz the right actress to portray her? Well, I'm also an actor. So I trained in an
00:42:00acting school for years and years. And I used to train with her. So we know each other like
00:42:07intimately. We know a lot of ourselves, because when you train acting, you expose
00:42:13the things that are really private, you know, and she's a friend of mine. And I know that she's
00:42:19really capable of expressing interiority through exteriority. So what I wanted to do with this film
00:42:26that it's about inflation and it's about how inflation affects somehow the possibility of
00:42:32projecting something into the future. It's a film that it's about the struggles in an
00:42:39economic crisis and how the characters start looping, you know, like there's no there's a
00:42:45structure of it's like a loop. The actors start like doing the same thing over and over,
00:42:52like in Charlie Chaplin comedies that Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, they always do the
00:42:59same mistake. Now, there's not a transformation of the characters. And I wanted to do this and
00:43:05to relate it with the economic crisis, economic crisis and inflation. And I thought training
00:43:11with Laila Maltz that she was a great actress because she somehow like Buster Keaton,
00:43:17she expressed with her saving the distances. Obviously, I'm not comparing myself or Laila
00:43:23with Buster Keaton, but I sense that in Laila that she can express something with little,
00:43:30little gestures that the spectator have to do the math or the lecture of that gestures.
00:43:38And I'm more eager to work with these kind of gestures that blends documentary with fiction
00:43:46than on the arc or the psychology of the character. So for me, Laila was
00:43:53was super chaotic, you know, and organized at the same time that she's
00:44:00dead and alive at the same time as a character. And I wanted to depict that kind of young people
00:44:08that is struggling with inflation and they can't project any future and they are like sleepwalkers
00:44:15or automatons with a humanist point of view. So what I tried to do with Laila,
00:44:22the protagonist, is to work with like a neutral like mask kind of acting, but to work on the
00:44:32interiority and the little, little expressions. And she's like death and alive at the same time.
00:44:40You know, I don't know if you feel something like that.
00:44:43Absolutely. Yeah, because I didn't even think she was into Paco necessarily. But then I was like,
00:44:48oh, there is, you know, there's something there. Yeah. And as you mentioned, you used to work at a
00:44:55museum. I read, I think that you shot actually at the museum where you worked at the Museum of
00:44:59Latin American Art of Buenos Aires. What was that like for you? How affirming did that feel for you
00:45:05as a filmmaker? Well, as an independent filmmaker that I am, I am trained to film and shoot things
00:45:13that are near to me, like to work with an actress that is near from me because I trained with her
00:45:20and I shot in the museum where I used to work at the time. So that was really like natural.
00:45:28And it was, it seems like really difficult because the short film has a lot of locations,
00:45:35of places and everything, but they are near to me. They are really near to me. So it felt
00:45:41it felt really, really natural for me to do that. And I was like obsessed with the
00:45:48with the artist that appears in the short film, that it's an Argentine artist that used to depict
00:45:55the crisis in the 80s. And I wanted to do a short film about the crisis now. So somehow
00:46:02it made a connection in me. And I wanted to then shoot a short film about Laila, a friend of mine
00:46:08that is a security guard in the museum I used to work. So it was natural for me. I love that. Well,
00:46:15tell me, you know, lastly about the response for you, you know, to be tapping into what's going on
00:46:20in your country now. You know, what reaction have you gotten to this film? Well, I guess like
00:46:26some years ago, maybe inflation was a mystery for other countries, but now many countries in
00:46:32the world are struggling with inflation, not in the same terms that we Argentinians are struggling
00:46:39because we have like a one hundred, I don't know, like one hundred percent of inflation per year.
00:46:46It's a really deep crisis. But for example, in Berlin, when I when I presented the short film
00:46:53the first time, the short film won the Golden Bear there that Berlin is used to inflation
00:47:00because of its history with the Second World War and what happened later with inflation and the
00:47:07Weimar Republic, you know, like, well, history. So I think they they kind of understood that there
00:47:14was something there that was not. Like near to them, because Argentina is really extreme,
00:47:23but there was something in the in the like atmosphere of inflation that could be like
00:47:29read or read by by, for example, the the Berlin audience, you know, like because what I think
00:47:38is that there are like plenty of films about, for example, language,
00:47:43like in a philosophical way, if you want the matrix, for example. No, but there are not many
00:47:49films about economy because the countries that produce more films like do not suffer
00:47:57much inflation. They are starting to suffer it now. And then somehow I think that we Argentinians
00:48:07can see economy as a language, like as a kind of language. And that was what I wanted to explore.
00:48:15And then I served myself with the screwball comedies, the American screwball comedies of
00:48:21the 30s, for example. They they are they are related with the atmosphere of the Great Depression.
00:48:28There's something in that comedies with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and all of that great actors
00:48:34of America that kind of traffics the atmosphere. Maybe it's not in the in the plot, but it's in
00:48:41the atmosphere, you know, like and in the neorealist neorealist films of Italy, there's something
00:48:48similar. And and for me, like working as a film history teacher professor and as a projectionist,
00:48:55too, there's something about film history that I want to to use in favour of my my short films.
00:49:02So I think it's it's something really Argentinian, but I use some elements of the history of cinema
00:49:08that are readable. Yes. For a wider audience. I think it works like that. I agree. Yes.
00:49:22So much for being with us and sharing your process and congratulations.
00:49:27Thank you very much. Now we're going to welcome director Moshe Mahler from the Art of Weightlessness.
00:49:33Hello. Thank you so much for being with us. I want to start. I kind of love the backstory that
00:49:39I've read about how this film came together, which is you, you know, setting up a studio in your
00:49:44basement and interviewing a dancer and skateboarder, Bill Shannon. How and when did you connect with him
00:49:51or were you approached, you know, to tell his story? Yeah, we met in, I want to say, 2017,
00:49:57and he was doing a an artist in residence at Carnegie Mellon University and was interested
00:50:05in utilizing motion capture to document his performance art, his way of moving on the
00:50:11crutches and just interested in the prosperity of that movement style. And when I when I was
00:50:18introduced to him and I saw what he was capable of and a little bit of his story, I was like, oh,
00:50:24you know, are you interested in collaborating? And and Bill is an artist himself. So he's just
00:50:29kind of a champion of all things creative and and was kind of into it from the beginning. And I read,
00:50:34you know, in an interview, you said at the time you were also looking for something different to
00:50:38work on at the time and kind of creating art for art's sake. How did this check that box for you?
00:50:43Yeah, well, at the time I was still with the Walt Disney Company. I was working for Disney Research
00:50:48and was working on a, you know, a line of projects that were fun and engaging and professional way,
00:50:55but kind of different than something I would want to make for myself for, you know, art. So I was
00:51:02looking for kind of like that side project. And and that's about the time we were introduced
00:51:07to each other. And then since then, I have held three other jobs. So it's this is really,
00:51:13truly it has been a passion project that I've kept alive over the years. Yeah.
00:51:18Well, talk about interviewing Bill and kind of sharing your story. I mean, how much time did
00:51:23you spend together? How much, you know, did you capture and what captivated you about his story?
00:51:28Yeah, well, initially, I was interested in just doing kind of this abstract homage to
00:51:38arcs, which is a principle of animation because Bill moves in these sweeping arcs. And
00:51:42and so that that would have been interesting enough for me. We went out for a coffee and kind
00:51:47of had a creative meeting. And, you know, I was interested in his backstory. How did how did
00:51:53someone end up so good at using the crutches to breakdance or skateboard? It was was kind of a
00:52:00question in my mind. And he talked about, you know, his evolution from childhood to adult and
00:52:06the evolution of his crutches. And so, like, from there, it became clear that that was the
00:52:12direction I was more interested in going is really the storytelling aspect of his backstory.
00:52:20How much interview time did you spend capturing and how?
00:52:26Yeah, it was it wasn't that long. You know, Bill is a professional storyteller, right?
00:52:32And he we probably captured about four hours of him telling his story in different ways. And we
00:52:38like, well, we kind of need a beginning. We need the ending. So we'd we'd iterate on it. And then
00:52:43from that four hours of footage, I cut it down to maybe like 15 minutes. And then from there,
00:52:4711 minutes. And the final piece is about nine minutes. Yeah.
00:52:51Well, can you kind of walk us through your animation process and kind of some of the
00:52:55stylistic choices there of kind of breaking it into parts also, including Bill in this kind of
00:53:02animated narrator way? Yeah. So there's a lot of ways to make things move in modern animation,
00:53:09right? And I think audiences tend to lump these categories together, like motion capture may not
00:53:15be very different from hand animation to the average audience member. But as an animator,
00:53:22we try to consider what is the best way to tell the story. So there's a lot of different animated
00:53:30styles in my piece. So we certainly do use motion capture, because that is true and authenticity to
00:53:38Bill dancing and working with his crutches. But, you know, animation is this medium of opportunity.
00:53:48So a lot of the more fantastical sequences of him as a kid, for example, was done through hand
00:53:56animation. And then as you mentioned, the parts where Bill is narrating, it's kind of like a
00:54:03talking head sequence. Those are from the studio session in my basement. And those were hand drawn,
00:54:10but rotoed on top of film, but all done by hand. So again, I'm just trying to look at the opportunity
00:54:17that the medium presents at each moment to best tell the story.
00:54:22And I think you were able to bring some students kind of on board to help with this creation as
00:54:26well. Can you talk about that a bit? Yeah, sure. So I'm a professor at
00:54:30Carnegie Mellon University now. And so it's great to be able to offer students, you know,
00:54:38professional experience on a production, even though maybe a modest production.
00:54:43So I think I got the help from about nine different students along the way and definitely
00:54:50believe in trying to get funding to pay for students. I'm trying to teach my art students
00:54:55like you should not work for free. So they were all kind of like paid apprenticeships
00:55:00or internships over the years to help me get the film made, essentially.
00:55:05Because now it's an Oscar conversation. That's amazing.
00:55:11And within kind of that process with animation, as you kind of talked about your choices,
00:55:15what were some of the challenges or even well, you kind of spoke to opportunities of why they're
00:55:20making those choices, but were there specific challenges within some of those choices?
00:55:26Yeah, I mean, I think when you kind of had this collage of animated styles, the question is,
00:55:32can you make that work? Because motion capture does feel different than hand animation. So it
00:55:37was like one of the first things we set out to prove, like, you know, when you when you make
00:55:41a film, you don't necessarily make it in chronological order, especially an animated
00:55:45film. I like working backwards from like, what is least likely to be true and then trying to
00:55:50prove that first. So the sequence where he's in this fantasy land as a child playing with his
00:55:59brother is followed up immediately by Bill's actual performance dancing on the crutches.
00:56:04And I needed to make sure that that transition worked well. So that was the first sequence I made.
00:56:10Okay, I love that one. What was Bill's reaction when he saw the finished product?
00:56:17Bill was, I think he's happy with it, for sure. And I think he saw kind of a unique opportunity
00:56:25to work with someone with kind of a different expertise in terms of medium. And he was really
00:56:31easy to work with. He gave me a lot of creative freedom. And I just would check in occasionally
00:56:35and make sure that I was doing justice to the storytelling and not misrepresenting anything
00:56:41in any way or anything like that. So he was he was really great to work with.
00:56:45What do you feel is an important takeaway from this project in terms of, you know,
00:56:49representation of identity and ability?
00:56:52Yeah. So part of my filmmaking process is trying to figure out what the story is, right? Like,
00:56:57I think a lot of filmmakers go through that process. And what I arrived on is, is really,
00:57:03it's a story about evolution through circumstance. And I think we think of evolution as this
00:57:08macrocosm of human species over the millennium, right? But I think we all go through like an
00:57:15individual evolution over the course of our lives. And that was an interesting idea to me. So I try
00:57:21to tell that story in different ways directorially. Like, for example, the complexity of the film
00:57:27changes from the beginning, it starts off fairly simple, and then gets quite complex towards the
00:57:32end, both in, you know, the visuals and the sound design and the music, as, you know,
00:57:38subtle things to like the film moves left to right. And at the beginning, it actually moves right to
00:57:44left, because he goes to the doctor to get his diagnosis. And that's the point where he can start
00:57:49moving forward. If you've ever had a medical diagnosis, sometimes like that can be, you know,
00:57:54obviously a weighted point in life, but allows you to kind of like, okay, well, this is my situation.
00:57:59Now, I can start living the rest of my life, right?
00:58:04And how did we settle on the name, The Art of Weightlessness?
00:58:08I think that so Bill had a show in New York, that it was titled The Art of Weightlessness,
00:58:18where, you know, he would he would do his performance art and, and things like that.
00:58:21So I always loved that title. And he mentioned that to me. So I always kept that in the back
00:58:26of my head, but also kind of motivated that evolution really well to where you start,
00:58:31start, you know, for example, there's a robot, a toy windup robot, as a theme in the piece. And
00:58:40this is like one of the simplistic forms of locomotion there is on Earth, like this thing
00:58:45can barely walk forward, and gravity is against it at all times. And by the end of the film,
00:58:52Bill is just like moving, you know, almost effortlessly, not effortlessly, but looks,
00:58:59looks second nature to him. And so that again, that spoke to that evolution. Well,
00:59:05and I kind of liked having a title that was more intriguing. Yeah, well, yeah,
00:59:10as someone with a sprained ankle right now, I was like,
00:59:15he's doing so much and I'm flipping around. Yeah, I've been on crutches for a long period for
00:59:21two long periods of my life. And yeah, I can relate. Yeah. Well, lastly, you know,
00:59:28you've said before, you know, you don't set out to make something that's potentially Oscar
00:59:32contending. But certainly, I imagine it feels great, you know, to kind of be in that conversation.
00:59:38You know, how have you felt about the response to this project so far?
00:59:43Yeah, you never know. You know, when you put something out there, you never know how it's
00:59:46going to do. And I think like a lot of filmmakers, you have your ups and downs, you're like, oh, wow,
00:59:51I get accepted this festival, and I win this festival. And then the next one, you just get
00:59:54rejected from so I'm glad that it's found an audience. And you know, you make you make these
01:00:00things to share with people because they're the things you would want to see. So it's fulfilling
01:00:05in that way, for sure. And you mentioned, you know, now kind of taking on some other projects,
01:00:10how has this kind of changed your trajectory? Um, yeah, I'm I am a person who kind of equally
01:00:20loves to explore art and industry and research. So I kind of always kind of ebb and flow and dabble
01:00:27in all those worlds. So now that I finished this more artistic endeavor, I'm going back and
01:00:32focusing on research a little bit too. But it does make me very excited. I can't stop myself,
01:00:37I still have started collecting footage for my next film. So I can't you know, that's just the
01:00:43way it's going to always go. Yeah, well, hopefully we get to chat with you about that later.
01:00:48Thank you so much for being with us and for sharing. All right. Thanks so much.
01:00:52You take care. Appreciate it. And now for our last Oscar short, we have NIE's. Welcome,
01:00:58please. Director Helene Hadjigani and producer Shanice Mindy.
01:01:03Oh, hello. Thank you both so much for being here with us. I want to start, you know, in the
01:01:10beginning, as you set up kind of the story of NIE's, you said that she has been running since
01:01:15she was seven years old. When did you both first learn of her? Well, it was for me, it was October
01:01:242022. During winter, I started to dig a little bit about the woman she is and everything she's
01:01:32been through in terms of sports, but also the challenges of life she went through.
01:01:37And at the time, Shanice, you were in New York and we were talking a lot. And by talking about
01:01:43this idea of doing a short documentary about her, you told me that you were already aware of her.
01:01:48Yes. Yeah. She's well known in the running and track and field world in France. And when she
01:01:58got sick, actually, that was painful for everyone. And so I had heard about her and her story,
01:02:07I think in 2016. Yeah. Yeah. And quite quickly after that, in January 2023,
01:02:14we met with Anaïs. We just had a quiet moment in a French cafe. We shared a cup of tea and we just
01:02:22started talking about this idea of doing a documentary about her and if she was OK about,
01:02:28you know, us following her and filming her and also her intimacy, how much she would be willing
01:02:34to accept or not. And it was a beautiful moment. And from that day, I think the three of us, we
01:02:41navigated through a beautiful journey together. Well, talk a little bit about her reaction. Was
01:02:47she immediately like, yes, follow? Was she nervous? You know what? I think she was very open and happy
01:02:56and always smiling like you saw in the film. She's always like that in general, every day of her life.
01:03:03It's more about us being able to follow her because not only she runs fast, but every day
01:03:11she's really having a very like she every day her life is going very fast. Yeah. And maybe she wasn't
01:03:18really aware of what it takes to direct a film, which was a challenge. But she was so open with
01:03:26us to everything. It was just a challenge for us to to jump on everything she has already planned.
01:03:34And the first thing was we didn't know. But when we talked with her, she said, oh, in two weeks,
01:03:39by the way, I'm flying to London. I'm going to run over there. And so I looked at Chinese and I
01:03:45said, I need to take a plane and go to London. So that's how it happened.
01:03:52Oh, I'm going to skip ahead that I was going to ask when you started. Also, what it was like
01:03:59for those meets, the reunion, the island, the cross-country race and the mud and the rain
01:04:04and all of that, of course, the twenty to twenty three marathon. You know, what was it like being
01:04:09in the moment of those meets? I remember in La Reunion, the first time I saw Anais running,
01:04:17I almost cried. And I don't know how to describe that. I think it was just this movement towards
01:04:24life that we could really feel. She's really carrying that in her with her smile and also
01:04:31with the family, the grandparents, Marcel and Joffret, that welcomed her so warmly.
01:04:38It was maybe the second day, the first day we shared a lunch altogether and we could
01:04:47feel welcomed. And yeah, what do you think? That was special. That was obviously a family time.
01:04:56And we like I felt like I was part of the family. We were part of the family really quickly.
01:05:03And that is extremely rare because we just met them in the morning and then we had lunch with
01:05:08them. And so obviously we asked them, is it possible to film this moment? And we had to
01:05:15explain also what we were like going to do, because Anais did not really tell them that
01:05:21a documentary was shot on her and all that. So that was magical. And when she runs,
01:05:28I mean, under the sun or in the mud, it's the same. She is like a sunshine, I would say.
01:05:37Yeah. And then her father is her trainer, right? Did I get that right? Or OK.
01:05:44I mean, talk about also capturing, you know, that relationship.
01:05:48What stuck out to you most about kind of that dynamic?
01:05:53Oh, well, I think Jean-Yves played a so precious role in her life at the time, but
01:06:02also every day now. He's the one who, when she was about to die, told her, get up and let's go
01:06:12and move. And even if it's just walking for a little bit, let's go. Let's have like let's stay
01:06:17in movement. And she often told us, like, this is really the momentum of our relationship as a
01:06:23daughter and father, but also in my life to survive. This is really where we switch something
01:06:31and that I understood that I could stay in movement and run. And I wasn't feeling sick
01:06:39when I was running and staying in movement. So he was really, really
01:06:44a precious foundation of who she is and how she overcome challenges in life. And
01:06:52we can feel the positivity and the optimism she has and she carries comes from him also.
01:07:00Yeah, exactly. He's also like the one gathering everyone around Anaïs as well,
01:07:06La Meute, the running club that she's part of. And same with the doctor, actually, like
01:07:14that was a team really all together. Yeah. And Anaïs, like most of the time, she says,
01:07:22if I had another doctor, maybe I wouldn't be here. Because obviously, like, at first,
01:07:32Monsieur Donarno was not really keen on letting her run because obviously the chemo and all the
01:07:39treatments are heavy, heavy. But he said yes. And he trusted her. And so she trusted him as well.
01:07:49And they worked on her body as a team and that worked. So that's beautiful in that sense.
01:07:56I want to spend some time on putting together that part of the film. Anaïs was diagnosed
01:08:02with triple negative breast cancer in 2015. So you obviously weren't following her at that time,
01:08:07but you put together that story with her doctor. And I was really struck by like the tattoos
01:08:13showing her different treatments and all of that. Can you kind of talk about putting that together
01:08:17visually and story wise? Yeah, it was quite challenging this part because I felt like it
01:08:25was really a necessity to speak about it. But how can we speak about something that's already
01:08:31happened and to honour in a way everything she went through without falling into something that
01:08:42we would fabric or build? And so I thought about her medical files that she kept. And I gathered
01:08:55every pieces and I analysed every pieces. I analysed the PET scans, the MRI. And I thought
01:09:03about doing a little bit like the documentaries the French director Alain René is doing or even
01:09:12when he's directing Hiroshima Mon Amour. He's talking about and he's building a story that
01:09:20based on a fact that's already happened. And he's trying to craft a story based on archives.
01:09:30And that's what I wanted to in a documentary to try to build, to stay honest with the audience.
01:09:38And so I put together all the archives and with the voiceover also, it was a desire to
01:09:48be very cold, as cold as what the files were saying about her treatments every month.
01:09:56And the volcano who from the beginning to the end was like a desire to build a skeleton to have
01:10:07like a reminder and maybe like a metaphor of what it is when we have chemotherapy inside
01:10:15of our bodies and how it burns the cells, the good ones and the bad ones and how it
01:10:21and creates marks on our bodies. And so I wanted to try to mix all of that very simply.
01:10:34Yeah, with the voiceover with also the images of her skin and her body with marks and scars,
01:10:42because it's also as women and our bodies, something we don't see very often. And yet,
01:10:49it's something we go through in life, whether it's with a disease or anything else in our lives,
01:10:56we are marked in our bodies, too. And I think it's something we should celebrate deeply.
01:11:02And it's a force. And so and also the desire to bring that in the middle of the film,
01:11:09too, because she's it's really how she felt it. It was a moment in her life. It went through.
01:11:16And then she went on to something else. So, yeah. And even like for the volcano part,
01:11:25her grandfather talked about fire all the time as well. That is something really in their roots.
01:11:32Yeah, it's something related to her roots profoundly regarding her grandfather. And so
01:11:39the fire and the volcano is an image of everything she's been impacted by, but also
01:11:46the release of a massive energy and movement she's also willing to give no matter what and
01:11:52how she's able to overcome every challenges she went through. When you ask people,
01:11:58OK, give us one word about Ananas, they all always say fire. Fire. Yes. Yeah.
01:12:07Well, what was her reaction when she saw the final film?
01:12:10She cried. We were the three of us. You and me were a bit scared because it was a lot, of course.
01:12:20It was an honor, but also a big responsibility to direct a film about her because we had to
01:12:27do it right. That's what I felt. And so when she sat down and the movie starts very quickly,
01:12:35she started crying. And she said at the end of it, she said, I'm happy because I'm seeing myself
01:12:41and I'm seeing the team and I'm seeing the people I know. It's not a lie. So that's the best
01:12:48compliment I think we can give. Yeah, we can. I love at the end, you know, that her dad's kind
01:12:56of summation is I continue and everything will be fine. You know, they've overcome just these
01:13:01monstrous obstacles. What were each of your personal takeaways from this project?
01:13:08Like Anais, I would say stay in movement when anything is happening.
01:13:16We will always be able to to find a solution. That's what I felt directing this movie with you,
01:13:21actually having a producer who's listening to your ideas when your director is very precious.
01:13:27And I felt like even when it was hard, we always had solutions to find. And,
01:13:35and, yeah, just try to stay positive and always smile, like Marcel said, to avoid pressure.
01:13:49And I also said, like, at the end of it, she said, now that you did this movie,
01:13:53maybe we should run a marathon together. Oh, my God. I'm going to take her up on that.
01:14:00We'll see. That would be amazing. An amazing challenge. We'll see.
01:14:08Well, I'm going to ask, you know, we end with this triumphant moment of her
01:14:13finishing first female. Did you have a sense of that might be where you ended
01:14:17the story or how are you thinking, you know, the narrative would end up?
01:14:21Well, Anaïs always said that she's running because she loves it, no matter the outcome.
01:14:30And so we weren't afraid about what's going to happen on April 2nd and what time she will do.
01:14:37Will she break her record or not? And I think when you're an athlete and in life in general,
01:14:45I think we learn even more when we fail. I don't really like this word because I feel like failure
01:14:52is just growing and learning how to grow even more. So I'm sure she would have been able to
01:15:04enjoy it anyway. Yeah. And she was like the same. Yeah. The same amount of joy with her team,
01:15:11with Lamotte. It's always in sharing the moments with her team that she
01:15:19enjoys everything. So the celebration of breaking her own record was just a cherry on the cake.
01:15:27Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you both so much for being here and sharing with us your story.
01:15:35Thank you so much. Oh, we have another cherry on the cake, actually. She's pregnant now. Oh, yes.
01:15:41Oh, my goodness. Are there plans to continue to follow her story in some way?
01:15:52She's expecting a little boy. And so she said, I'll take the time to rest and to have fun.
01:15:58She doesn't rest. She's still running, even with the baby. Yesterday, she ran 10 kilometers again.
01:16:08But no, she's going to take some moments to have this baby. And then she would like to
01:16:16try training for LA 2028. Yes.
01:16:22Thank you for joining us for THR Presents Oscar Shorts. Congratulations, everyone, and good luck.