Zeina Durra

[Editor’s note: this was originally published in January 2010. IFC releases the film in theatres today.]

IONCINEMA.com’s “IONCINEPHILE of the Month” puts the spotlight on an emerging filmmaker from the world of cinema. With Sundance being a big deal for us at the site, we’ve decided to feature one more filmmaker from tthe 2010 edition of the festival. This february we profile Zeina Durra and her debut film, The Imperialists are still Alive! Click here to view Zeina’s top ten films of all time (as of January 2010).

Zeina Durra’s atmospheric debut feature is a splendidly alluring and intelligent look at the way the war on terror seeps into the texture of everyday American life. Gorgeous 16 mm grain imbues the film with an anachronistic feel that interestingly evokes times past. The Imperialists Are Still Alive! is an exceptional work and heralds the arrival of Durra as an exciting new directorial talent. – Sundance Film Guide

Eric Lavallee: During your childhood…what films were important to you?
Zeina Durra: This is very embarassing. Star Wars was very important to me as I was in love with Luke Skywalker – why couldn’t I have chosen Harrison Ford? High Society was another favourite, it’s got the jazz, the fashion, the class critique. A friend from film school watched it with me once and she said, “Now I see the difference between us, I grew up on Annie and you were watching this!”. Romancing the Stoneand Jewel on the Nile, I would watch these over and over again with my brother. I have even bought him the double dvd set maybe three times as I get so excited whenever I see it and always forget that I already gave it to him. Coming to America, again my brother and I would watch it over and over again. I think we related to the political/cultural irony at an early age, there’s also a moment when a Zebra canters across their garden and that just always makes me laugh so much to this day.

E.L: In your formative years, what films and filmmakers inspired you?
ZD: Finally at 12 years old my mother introduced me to Renoir’s Rules of the Game that she said I had to see as it was one of the most important films ever made and that’s when I moved away from Dynasty,Dallas and The A-Team. Then the usual education ensued, Godard, Bunuel, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Antonioni. I was and still am obsessed by Almodovar’s film’s like Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, he was the first director whose work I watched one after the other.

E.L: At what point did you know you wanted to become a filmmaker? And how do you perceive the experience(s) of your thesis short film (Seventh Dog) today?
ZD: I made my first film at 10 years old. It was for my birthday party. I wrote it and directed it. My father was the DP. I just remember getting really frustrated with the bad performances that my friends gave and wondered how I could make them better and that’s how it all started.

My thesis short film was tough, I’m happy I did it as I feel that people don’t respect the medium anymore. You have to train like in anything and scrutinize your work and my thesis and other short films I have made really helped me do this.

E.L: With The Imperialists are still Alive!, I get a sense that your aim is to go beyond the colorful side of the immigrant experience – what is the genesis of the project and how difficult was it to write/juggle/infuse dramatic and comedic elements? 
ZD: I don’t even see it as an immigrant experience per se. These characters may not stay in New York, there are lots of people who are citizens of the world be it due to exile or just because they fell into that addictive lifestyle. New York is full of them and I wanted to capture that on film. I went to New York for film school and stayed and so this is based on people I know and things I saw over the last ten years. It was really difficult to write/juggle/infuse dramatic and comedic elements, mainly because of other people who read it. When they left me alone it worked! It’s not their fault as I was finding my voice, but as Elodie said after watching it, most people either do a drama or a comedy and I wove them both together and it’s got sparkles of life throughout (according to her). I think it may be my English aesthetic of always undercutting things, it’s also an existential thing.

E.L: Apart from the ability to speak in different tongues and perhaps someone who could pass as old soul, what kind of characteristics/features were you looking for in the character of Asya?
ZD: A strong woman who can navigate any space confidently. 

E.L: How did Élodie come on board? Were you a fan of Dream Life of Angels?
Z.D: My casting director suggested her and I went to Paris to meet her. She loved the script and she’s an amazing actress so of course I wanted to work with her. Playing an artist is very hard as it can come of as super fake, but Elodie is an artist in real life and that translated. Who doesn’t like Dream Life of Angels?! but that wasn’t on my mind, the material was difficult and Elodie wanted to do it the moment she read the script. She said she knew she’d like me because she loved the script. That’s the kind of person you want to work with, an amazing actress who gets what you’re trying to do and is excited by it. 

E.L: You used Super 16 for cost and lightweightedness but you also wanted to implement a look that relates to a different era of NYC. I was wondering what the reasons were for this choice and what other inspirations (other films, location, paintings etc…) did you draw upon for the look/style, aesthetics of the film?
Z.D: I always work with a lot of different images be it photography paintings etc. for winter light we used Hammershoi as an example, then Moriyama for that urban texture, Koudelka’s photographs from Prague 1969, Eggleston was having a big show at the Whitney and I loved the phonewires and carpet, the bare bulbs (if that makes any sense). I was obsessed by tiles and using pale green tiles (which we did use in the bathroom scene!). I felt that the bare New York, painted over a hundred times radiator was also a key aesthetic point. It had to be raw. I felt super 16 would be perfect since it has that grain, and all the films I love are shot on it anyway! I’m not into slick and super 16 would give me something more real.

E.L: Can you discuss the collaborative process you had with your DP (Magela Crosignani)?
Z.D: Magela Crosignani was 100 percent there. I need a DP to be passionate and with me and my story. She is a very talented cinematographer who used to hang out a lot with the grads at NYU when she was doing Undergrad film, so I knew her through friends. We had so much fun together making this. She’s also very intellectual so could go off on tangents with me which I appreciate. There’s nothing worse than when you work with someone who makes you feel that you’re wasting their time when you go off on a tangent and not knowing what will come of it. I need people who want to explore around me.

E.L: Can you discuss the collaborative process you had with your Editor (Michael Taylor)?
Z.D: Michael Taylor is so much fun to edit with. He listens, he debates, he’s encouraging. I normally edit my own stuff so it was a big deal for me to let someone else edit. Michael was great because I would take over the keyboard, do my thing and then we would discuss, he would then take the keyboard and we’d go back and forth. Or, I would leave for a day or two and come back and he’d show me what he had done and then I’d have a tinkle. It was a real collaboration.

E.L: Can you discuss the collaborative process you had with your Production Designer (Jade Healy)?
Z.D: On our first meeting I showed Jade Healy thirty images of how I wanted the film to look. We met up again and she showed me sixty more images only three of which were not what I was thinking of. That is a great production designer. She just got the job done and if you screwed up and forgot to mention something, I remember I wanted a specific type of tea glass in a scene that we were in the middle of shooting and had forgotten to mention it, Jade just went and found it and made no fuss. That’s what you need on a film, someone who just gets stuff done without going on about it.