Urbanworld Film Festival 2018 - WOLF
Will Jo's longing overcome her?
Interview with Writer/Director/Lead Actor Brittany Ballard
Watch Wolf here:
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
I made WOLF to recover from the grief I was experiencing after my abortion. I made the film to heal and connect with other women experiencing grief.
For me, Wolf was about giving myself a new way to grieve, a more complete way, a more effective way. Since writing about it didn't help, going to therapy didn't help, and breaking up with the man who didn't want the baby he put inside me didn't help. I was still in so, so, so much pain around this choice that I made and do not regret. I didn't feel I had the right to grieve since I was the one who decided not to have it. It didn't occur to me that my life was valuable enough to choose myself over being a mother to a baby the father didn't want. It was for the child that I didn’t have the child. I could see my life and the child’s life in the future and it was ugly. I knew I wanted to be a mother when I decided to abort. All of this was extremely traumatizing.
I went into a deep depression, emotionally, hormonally, and physically after the abortion. I was paralyzed, stuck, regressing, spinning. Somehow I found myself in a short story class, and it was the freedom of fiction that enabled me to really tell the truth to myself and others. And then, it was only in the process of developing the short story into a script that I started to see how impossible it was going to be for me to let a man tell me how to act during my abortion scene.
So I decided to act and direct and find a group of people who could hold sacred space for me to create, thereby grieve, turning poison into art. I can only hope that this selfish act, this self-preserving act, after years of self destruction, can speak to other women who might feel just as alone in their grieving.
I lived through this experience – this abortion – and I couldn’t get through the deepest part of grief without creating something out of the despair and depression it caused me. In this case, film saved me, or rather, it helped me to move on, let go, and see how my experience was not all loss, was not all waste, was not, a mistake. I suppose it’s also about procreating and creating. They feel so similar to me now that I am a mother so it makes some sort of weird sense that the best way to get over an abortion is to create art about it.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Because it's a good, compelling story told from a uniquely feminine perspective that will surprise you and stay with you long after the film is over. Plus, it's only 9 minutes and I poured my whole body, heart and mind into it and I could really use your support. Thanks for watching!
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Grief is deeply personal and each person experiences grief in their own unique way. However I believe we are all hurting right now. This is a harsh world we're living in, and I believe we all collectively experience both the pains and joys of our fellow humans on this planet. I really believe this. I feel so crazy lately, but it's a crazy time. And perhaps it's always a crazy time on this planet for humans, but if we don't tell our deeply personal stories, then we never have the chance to discover that we aren't alone. Also, I wanted to explore the stealing of culture and the cultural appropriation of Black people by white people.
I wanted to explore how we hurt people when we are hurting. I wanted to explore the nuance of choices - meaning that we can make a choice and still feel ambivalence. I want to fight against this notion that the world is black and white and instead focus on the grey area, where it is imperative that women have the right to choose, and this is a really hard fucking choice so many of us have had to make. It's not right or wrong, it's just true.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
I wrote a short story called THE PARK as an assignment in a short story class, and it was pretty good. I woke up one morning and decided it should be a short film. I felt there was more I could extract from these characters; more healing I could do by more deeply investigating this story.
My producer and dear friend Bethany Wearden and I decided to make the film for as much as we could raise in the three weeks we had before shooting (in order to meet festival deadlines), which meant I kept changing the script, reducing it down to its core, all the while keeping the budget. In my limited experience, the script only gets better when you’re really backed into a corner and you have to cut out all the fat and extras that take away from the essence of the story. That only happens for me when I have to do it. As a writer we can fall in love with our words so a strict budget is a great way to force-edit yourself in the writing process.
Also, if I may give a small piece of advice to other filmmakers: try not to have your most important scene shoot at magic hour like I did. We lost light – we were racing the sun and the sun won – and our actors in the last scene weren’t available to re-shoot so we ended up with an entirely different ending than I intended. I’m at peace with it but it was a big challenge to get the ending to work without the key scenes we needed to make the story make sense. I have decided to let it go and let it be a lesson learned for the next one.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
We had a great world premiere at Cinequest, and a great East Coast premiere at Urbanworld tonight from what I hear (I am home with my new baby so sadly could not attend). But I will share that the subject matter is sensitive, so audience members who are moved by the film don't raise their hands to ask questions. Instead, they find me after the screening to talk privately, to share their story, to express their gratitude, to process their own grief. It's a vehicle for eradicating shame around grief.
Our most impactful screening was a private viewing in a private home, where people felt more free to openly share their responses and feelings around it. We plan on doing more private and personal, intimate screenings, where we can hold grief circles after. I long for this personal connection and community building, and I'm excited to share the film in this capacity. It's a fast moving film - we packed a lot into 9 minutes, so I think people need time to process it. It may be best suited for an online release, so people can have time and space to process it on their own. I look forward to finding out!
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
I have gone through the 5 stages of grief around all the festival rejections we've received. I still believe this though: you should make the most personal story you can possibly make because that's the one that will resonate with the most people – and then when/if you don’t get into festivals or other exclusive places you dreamed of sharing the film - do NOT take it personally.
That’s the challenge – make it personal, don’t take it personally. I had to remember why I made the film - to heal, not to schmooze or feel part of an exclusive or elite community. Of course industry recognition would be nice, but we cannot control (yet!) who the gatekeepers are, or how they make their decisions. We can only keep making things, keep creating, and keep sharing the work we create.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
My goal now is for as many people to see the film as possible, so I can connect with them and hear their stories if they wish to share. This film is not complete because it has not yet been seen. I hope being visible on this site will connect WOLF with the audiences who want to see it but don't have access to festivals.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
Audiences. Online and in smaller, intimate settings. I'm moving to Denver in November, so I want to connect with people (both audiences and industry members) there specifically to build community. I want to make films in Denver.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I may be repeating myself, but I hope it can make people feel less alone in their grief. I hope to build community around the film, both online and in smaller screening events.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Do you have the right to grieve if it was your choice to end it?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I'm working on INSTAFAM PROJECT, a blog and podcast. I'm launching a new live show event called UNSENT. I'm also developing a TV show and focusing more and more on writing fiction. Find out more at www.brittany-ballard.com.
Interview: September 2017
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. 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
WOLF
Will Jo's longing overcome her?
Length: 9 mins
Director: Brittany Ballard
Producer: Bethany Wearden
Writer: Brittany Ballard
About the writer, director and producer:
BRITTANY BALLARD (writer/director) is a creator, currently focused on INSTAFAM, her blog and podcast project. www.brittany-ballard.com
BETHANY WEARDEN (producer) works with artists to develop their projects and share them with diverse audiences around the globe.
Key cast: Brittany Ballard, Sachin Chatterjee, Kamali Minter
Looking for: audiences, journalists
Facebook: wolffilm2017
Twitter: @babyluck
Instagram: @babyluckbritt
Funders: Dominique Dauwe, Stephen Nemeth (exec producers), but 90% funded by crowdsourcing
Made in association with: God
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Online by early November, 2018!