Norwich Radical Film Festival - In the Dreams of Others
In the Dreams of Others is the first chapter in a a poetic series of character studies.
Interview with Writer/Director s/n (Jennida Chase & Hassan Pitts)
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Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
It was actually born out of a performance exercise. My partner Hassan Pitts and I were doing our 1st residency together, at Ox-bow Artists’ Residency on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan (about a 2.5 hour drive from Chicago). We were trying to relate to the space and to each other and develop a new way of collaborating. We walked into one of the cabins there, which looked like a rural home. We instinctively started setting up and directing one another to interact with the space as if it were our home.
We shot in this way for about 7 days—setting up small scene fragments for each other in an imaginary life. When we looked at the footage we had collected, we began to think about the cognitive sway that location implicates. Meaning, if you stand next to a brightly colored wall—it doesn’t really effect you internally, but a casts a tint. What can we do with tints like this? How do social constructs like gender, class, and race play out with different tints?
The short answer to the question is—to start conversations.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
It’s the portrayal of family going about their day, they just so happen to be mixed race in a rural setting in the United States, where race is a very serious, hot button topic. But the film is not didactic or particularly heavy handed about the topic—these are just a few humans interacting with themselves and their environment.
Also, I think this film would be attractive to people who are interested in poetics. We tried to develop a visual poetic rendering of the idea of shifting perspectives. I also think people interested in experimentation would find the film interesting.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
There is a general approach to slice-of-life fiction, but the stroke is broad enough to keep things open ended. Relatability and accessibility are fairly important to us, we tried to keep grounded in the rendering of the film, so that it was almost like a poetic surveillance…
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production?
Again, this began as a performance exercise during an artist residency we did. After assessing the footage generated, we created a skeleton outline of the way the piece could flow, we made tactical decisions based on singular moments. We would look for continuity between the perspectives displayed and approach the edit in a pragmatic way.
The sound is completely ‘wild sound’ all of it was added in post. With the sound we went for a reserved, naturalistic approach in order to keep the visuals grounded in themselves and not to add many additional layers of meaning.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
In a (yet unpublished) interview with Cinewomen, they introduced the work in this way: “Jennida Chase want to make the perceptual process the subject of her films by emphasizing the medium's material form. From the first time we watched In the Dreams of Others we were impressed with her fragmented storytelling, the way she sabotages the common perception mechanims like in the films of the French director Alain-Robbe Grillet in order to explore the cognitive and relational mechanisms.”
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
I was really thrilled with the Cinewomen description (I love Grillet) and I felt that they understood what I was trying to go for, as far as using the form to explore cognitive and relational mechanisms…
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
The hope for the work to be more conceptually accessible to a broad audience.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
I would love to continue to screen this film and and have the opportunity to talk about it (like this interview)… as the film hits its 2 year mark, it loses the opportunity to screen in countless festivals, due to the general trend in festivals to only want to show work 2 years old or less. I think it is a weird rule that shadows contemporary cultures obsession with youth and ‘the new’… sometimes that isn’t healthy. But, this work exists to present an idea and generate conversation. I don’t think the conversation is done yet. Race is a serious issue all over the world, as are issues around gender and class! Let’s keep talking!
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
Again, we’d like for this film to give a poetic sense of perspective and generate conversations around gender, class, and race.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Do poetic experimentations help—in other words, does art function in the space of social discourse?
Is considering how others live interesting?
What are the key creatives developing or working on now?
We have a few projects in various stages of production/post production right now. The biggest project being The Richmond Reclamation Project (http://richmondreclamationproject.com/) which is essentially an oral history collection for the 21st century. We place location-specific memories (video interviews) of Richmond, Virginia’s senior African Americans back into the landscape via GPS enabled mobile application and a playable map online.
Interview: August 2016
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
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In the Dreams of Others
In the Dreams of Others is the first chapter in a a poetic series of character studies.
Length: 5:05
Director: s/n (Jennida Chase & Hassan Pitts)
S/N is a interdisciplinary art group, which works with film, video, sound, animation, photography and locative media. Members include Jennida Chase and Hassan Pitts who have been creating collaborative work since 2008.
Producer: (same)
Writer: (same)
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists):
Journalists, film festival directors, distributors…
Funders: self funded
Made in association with: Oxbow Artist Residency
Release date: 2014
Where can I watch it in the next month? Would you like to screen it in your town? Contact us!
Thanks again!!