Lady Filmmakers Festival 2019 – Alt
15-year-old Nolan is on an inter-dimensional run for his life as a monstrous Evil pursues him through one reality after another.
Interview with Director Cornelia Duryée
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Our film was intentionally conceived, pitched, designed and built as a new direction for Kairos. Everyone here at Kairos is geeky, but we just kept doing dramas. We finally decided to let our geek flag fly. We’ve had a lot of fun doing it. Josh’s treatment was hilarious, moving, and multi-layered, with wisdom bubbling beneath the humor. His ideas fit really well with Kairos’ mission - telling redemptive stories - in new, surprising ways.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
This movie puts relatable human characters into fantastical, extraordinary circumstances. We get to play in a high stakes sci-fi environment that's grounded in a setting that we all know. We all have family that makes us crazy. Add a dash of elemental evil at Christmas and then it's an adventure.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
My favorite bits of the film come from things that either fascinated or terrified us in the writer's room. In the Pacific Northwest, there’s a real sense that if you don’t do something about it, mold will take over anything that you leave unprotected. That both fascinates and repulses us. Mold is death, breakdown, decay. That’s fundamentally what we, as people, are fighting against. On the lighter side, there's also the way we fight with our family...In our film, Nolan and Mae are both totally wrapped up in their own worlds at the beginning. Mae is involved in teen drama with her boyfriend, and Nolan is being chased by nightmare. Over the course of the film, they end up united against these forces. Which is often the case with siblings. We think our own story is the only one that matters, but then we realize that the annoying person next to us at dinner is the one who will help us survive.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The evolution of the script was a true collaboration. Josh pitched us an amazing treatment, and then we built the best writer's room I've ever worked in. I'm not just saying that because my hilarious and brilliant son Tallis was in the room, but maybe I am. The location really drove the script. We had access to a cool old home in Seattle. So, we began to construct the entire story around that house. Sometimes, it felt a little like Tetris, where you have to be thinking several moves ahead. When we were writing, we thought specifically about the rooms in that house and how to reveal them in a satisfying way. The fewer resources you have, the more strategic you need to be in how you use them.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
We've had two test screenings so far. And the feedback has been pretty positive. Some of my favorite comments were "a shiny holiday film the whole family can jump into" and "I had tears in my eyes by the end and I got chills throughout." That felt amazing to hear.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Well, yes. After our first screening, we discovered we could push the tension further, so we did. Then, our second screening told us to leave a little more breath for the comedy, so we listened to that too.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We want everyone in the world to fall in love with our film. Doesn't everyone say that?
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We'd love to have someone come to make us an offer and get this film in front of a huge audience. And its sequels, of course.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We made this for young people. We wrote a young protagonist for a reason. We think there needs to be more content celebrating the intrepid, powerful, open-hearted young people in the world.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
There's a sci-fi trope that if you travel back in time, your smallest actions could have huge repercussions for the future, so, which of your smallest actions today will change the future?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Oh, yes. We are in post-production on a beautiful feature film, Language Arts, about family, autism, and finding a way to communicate despite the barriers that can separate us from the ones we love. We are also in development on a sci-fi short and three feature-length genre films.
Interview: October 2019
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
Alt
15-year-old Nolan is on an inter-dimensional run for his life as a monstrous Evil pursues him through one reality after another.
Length: 1:13
Director: Cornelia Duryée
Producer: Larry Estes
Writer: J. D. Henning and Tallis Moore
About the writer, director and producer:
CORNELIA DURYEE began as a playwright and stage director, but it was her relationship with Madeleine L'Engle that led her into the world of film when L’Engle invited her to adapt several of her novels and plays for the screen. Corrie’s films include Camilla Dickinson, Language Arts, Portal Runner, West of Redemption, and The Dark Horse. Corrie served as Executive Producer for cult favorite JourneyQuest Season 1, a producer of JourneyQuest Season 2, and as a casting director for The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, as well as many other Seattle film and theater productions. Cornelia is in the continual process of writing and developing numerous projects for Kairos. Cornelia is now in pre-production for a 2019 feature film shoot in Washington State.
A Seattle native with a passion for genre stories, TALLIS MOORE, absconded from Williams College with a degree in English Lit. As a writer, his interest includes mythology, hard-boiled detectives, and scrambled detectives. He's been lucky enough to act in a number of films, including Gamers: Dorkness Rising, Journey Quest (season one), and Language Arts.
J.D. HENNING loves all things genre, from spies to spaceships to zombies, and has been writing in that vein since 2013. J.D. graduated with a film degree in 2011 from Montana State University and continued his education, graduating from the University of Montana with a law degree in 2014. He’s a licensed attorney in Montana and Washington, but he's not a jerk.
LARRY ESTES ,“Hollywood’s Quiet Godfather of the Offbeat Film” (NYT) His films include Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, lies, and videotape, Allison Anders’ Gas Food Lodging, Carl Franklin’s One False Move (co-starring and co-written by Billy Bob Thornton), John Sayles’ City Of Hope and Passion Fish, Neal Jimenez & Michael Steinberg’s The Waterdance, Bobcat Goldthwait’s Shakes The Clown, and John Turturro’s Mac among others. Since becoming an independent producer, five more of his films have premiered at Sundance, four of those in dramatic competition, including Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals, and The Business of Fancydancing. Since 2006, he served as executive producer of The Heart of the Game, and he has produced five feature films with Kairos Productions.
Key cast: Elise Eberle (Mae), Sloane Morgan Siegel (Nolan), Carol Roscoe (Klara), Brian S. Lewis (Uncle Boon)
Looking for: distributors, buyers, film festival directors
Facebook: Alt
Twitter: @altsaga
Hashtags used: #altsaga
Website: www.kairos-productions.com/alt
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Lady Filmmaker Festival/Beverly Hills - September 29th