Q&A WITH PETE OHS

Q. Why did you want to shoot this film in Warsaw?

A. I moved to Warsaw for romantic reasons and because I was living there, I saw an opportunity to make something in the city. Making movies somewhere is one of my favorite things to do. It’s a great way to meet people and engage with the world.

I function from a place of intuition. I try not to analyze too much and trust that the things that I’m experiencing are going to end up in the movie in some way, whether literally or metaphorically. I don’t fight that, I embrace it. This is the point of making art. This is the point of living. To keep processing the experiences that I’m having.

Q. How did you go about assembling your cast, especially involving the likes of Charli xcx and Jeremy O. Harris?

A. My way of making movies is very non-traditional. I like having some people who have done it before and then, because I’m not trying to just do the same thing over and over again, I also enjoy having new collaborators who I get to share my way of making movies with. I get to learn from them, as they bring all their experiences to me and to the project.

Usually, it’s a game of observing what my resources are and who is available. And, intuitively, who feels right and interesting. Lena [Gorá] was one of the first people on the film. I met her organically through this great film festival called the American Film Festival, which is in Wrocław, another town in Poland. She’s a filmmaker and actress based in Warsaw. She had made a movie in a very similar spirit that was almost like the inverse of Erupjca, where she came to America and filmed with a Polish crew in Joshua Tree, out in Southern California. I felt like she was a kindred spirit.

Jeremy is one of my best friends. I’ve known him for close to a decade, but getting to work intimately, you become closer and closer. Through him, we coincidentally met Charli. This was pre-BRAT, at Clandestino in Dimes Square. It was at the right moment in all of our lives: she already knew she wanted to start doing films; I’m this filmmaker who’s already planning to make a movie in a really low stakes way. I think that was exciting for her, given that this was a new medium she wanted to be able to explore and figure out what to do with. What her strengths and weaknesses were. Organically, all these things made sense.

That’s Charli. That’s Jeremy. That’s Lena. I needed, knowing that there were all these challenges I’d be facing making a movie in another country where I don’t speak the language, another solid collaborator. Will Madden was the perfect person because this would mark the third movie we’d be working on together. I know I can rely on him and that I wouldn’t have to take care of him. So, he became the correct, organic, natural fourth collaborator.

Q. What’s your process like? Do you write the film as you’re shooting?

A. We start with half of an outline — 18 bullet points. I didn’t go to film school, I studied computer science, so I feel like I’ve created this computer program to make a movie. What it does is define the sandbox. Within the sandbox, we can do whatever we want, but this is the structure that we have to work within. Three scenes a day, every day, for two weeks. Scenes on average will be two minutes long. That means you’re doing six minutes of movie per day. If you shoot 12 days, you’re going to end up with a 72-minute movie.

That’s the system. Within it, we have incredible freedom to do whatever we want. I’m like, “Put me in a box, please. But, within that box, let me do whatever I want.” I’m happy to have borders defined that I get to push up against and limitations that I have to be challenged by.

Q. Your use of voice-over in Erupjca is quite abrupt and creates a sense of distance between the narrative and its characters. Was this element there from the start?

A. We first did voice-over with Charli. It was going to be her character, Bethany, reciting poetry that she had written when she was 16 years old — I wrote all of this poetry as a 16-year-old girl. I had Charli record it on her phone and we thought it was interesting. We put it in the edit, we watched it, and we were like, “No, that’s not good.” Back to the drawing board.

I was hanging out with another filmmaker friend, Albert Birney, in Baltimore. We were supposed to be playing video games, but then, because we have all of these different movie projects going on, we ended up talking about movies. He was checking in with me, asking me how the movie was coming along, and how the editing was going. I told him I couldn’t figure it out, that we’d tried a voice-over but there was this void. Casually, he asks, “What about a voice-over like the one in Jules and Jim?” We pulled up the movie on the Criterion Channel, pressed play, and we watched the first minute of it. I was like, “Yeah, that could be good.” So, in that very moment, I got up, typed a line of voice-over into Google Translate and had the voice say it. I thought it was cool, so I recorded it.

The next three days, Albert and I sat at a table figuring out the voice-over in the movie and using the Google Translate voice the whole time. It’s similar to the one in Jules and Jim, where the voice is detached by an omniscient narrator who has a point-of-view and a very specific perspective. As we were writing, we understood what the rules of the voice-over were: what he does and does not comment on, what he can and cannot see. He’s always sharing facts. Something about that feels correct.

At first, I didn’t really care why because it just felt right. But, if I am going to be a film student to myself, I’d be like, “Well, the characters are very emotional, but are unable to express it. It’s not necessarily fair or interesting for an outsider to have complete access to all that. It actually does more to have him be unemotional; to not be this volatile element in this world that these ladies are navigating as volcanoes. He is the geologist observing these volcanic eruptions.” But, that’s Pete if he’s having to write an essay about the movie for his film studies class. I often find that I can project a bunch of meaning onto the use of something… But you know what? I would bet money that most artists just feel a vibe about using something or doing something. It just feels right and I don’t even need to understand why yet. I am the artist, somebody else can figure it out later.

Q. What is the last film you saw and loved?

A. I’ve been traveling a lot and that means a lot of airplane movies. I’m also a creature of habit. I don’t have Spotify on my phone, I just have a couple of albums and I listen to those same albums for months at a time. On flights, the way this has manifested itself for me recently is that, regardless of the airline, they’ll have The Sound of Music. So, I just watch The Sound of Music on every flight I’m on, sometimes multiple times.

It’s obviously a wonderful film. A classic. In fact, it’s in the “Classic” section of the plane. Also, it’s a movie that was part of me as a child. I have existed with these songs, these melodies, and these characters from a very early age. Something about that is really comforting. The last few years of my life have been very dynamic and tumultuous, so I can sense this is a constant comfort watch for me.

Q. What’s a piece of advice that you’ve never forgotten?

A. I came away from therapy with two really important mantras that I find very valuable. One is, “Everything is going to be okay,” and the other is, “Someone will help you.” I find both true and both to be easily forgotten, especially when things are stressful.

Q. Who is an underappreciated artist you admire and why?

A. Albert Birney. I think he’s such a special artist. And, now that he has also become such a close friend, it feels a little strange to call him under-appreciated because I appreciate him so much. If he had a religion, I would subscribe to it.

And, I don’t think this is the correct answer, but Panda Bear from Animal Collective. He has a bunch of albums and I haven’t always listened to them when they come out. Only later will I find them and be like, “Oh, this one is really good.” As an artist, I know that when you put something out you are very aware of how people respond to it the moment you’ve released it. If that opening weekend doesn’t do well, or if it doesn’t land on the charts, it feels bad to be like, “Oh, it’s going to become a cult classic.” Or, “People will discover it when they’re meant to.” That’s how you end up with an artist like Van Gogh, who dies and then we all love him.

So, I did not listen to the most recent Panda Bear album when it came out. It was produced by Josh Dibb, who is also a member of Animal Collective. And, he did the score for Obex. A year and half after it came out, I listened to it. I was like, “Oh, it’s so good.” Now it’s one of those albums I have on repeat. And, it felt great to be able to message Josh and be like, “Great job on the album.” But, it’s also something I was under-appreciating… The fact that this artist is continuing to put out things that bring value to my life.

Q. What’s a project you’d like to make someday, however impossible it might seem now?

A. When I project into the future and think about new challenges, one thing I am very excited about is the idea of a limited series. I don’t want to make television, because I think television is evil. It’s too consumerist and too capitalist. It doesn’t want people to be free. It doesn’t respect life. It wants to trap you and keep you watching. Movies end. They’re like, “I’m going to be here, I’m going to give you an experience, and then I want you to go off with that experience and live your life again.”

The limited series exists in that way too. There’s an end. It’s just going to take a little bit more time. And, there’s something about the collaboration that would happen on a limited series that excites me. The idea of not being the director for all of the episodes, and getting to engage with two other main heads. Very rarely do directors get to see other directors direct. That’s exciting.

Q. What image would you like to end this interview with? 

A. The last picture I took was on the subway here. It’s not even that good, but it’s kind of awesome. I was in the front car of the subway and if you’re in the front, there’s a window. You can see the tunnel and, as you come to the next stop, you see the platform. It’s a cool thing.