Q&A WITH KAZIK RADWANSKI

Q. This film stars Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson, with whom you’ve worked with in the past. How do you find the people you like to work with?

A. It’s changed throughout my career. My first two features were more documentary-like and had almost all non-actor performances. But when I made those films, I started playing at festivals and I suppose I met Matt and Deragh that way. Matt had a movie called The Dirties around the time I had my first feature, Tower. And with Deragh, I think I saw I Used to be Darker, Matthew Porterfield’s film. That’s how we initially met.

We also share a lot of collaborators. And Deragh, in particular, is quite a cinephile, so we kept running into each other at the cinema when she moved to Toronto. After meeting Deragh, I wrote Anne at 13,000 ft. for her. Matt was in that as well, but it was almost an experiment. He was initially meant to just do one or two scenes, and it just grew into this bigger thing, all the way to Matt and Mara now.

I wrote Matt and Mara with the two of them in mind, the two of them crashing into each other. It was what I wanted to see. They’re both witty and smart people. But I think, in a simpler way, they’re opposites of each other, but they still sort of make sense. Part of that is on-screen and part of what helps is that I think there’s a deep trust between the two of them in real life — that allows them to really play around and explore things. 

I also think that each of them are very committed to filmmaking in a similar way that I am, to making these smaller films. You only do it because you’re really passionate. Both Matt and Deragh are passionate, but in very different ways.

Q. Matt and Mara — much like your other films — features a lot of close-ups. What is the relationship between how close your camera gets to your characters and how intimate the narratives you tell about them are?

A. It’s a question I’ve always liked to play with or think about, all the way back to my earlier shorts, and again, my earlier work, which was more documentary-like and featured non-actors. There was this fascination with their faces and these uncontrolled responses — very naturalistic dialog or facial expressions being very intimate.

When some people watched those films, they’d describe them as being subjective. But I always think of those earlier films as being somewhat objective, there’s this feeling of being very close to someone, but them still being mysterious. I think there’s something very cinematic about being very close to something that’s mysterious. It’s something I love about other films too. And, back to that whole subjective versus objective thing, I like making the audience a little uncomfortable. I love the feeling of intimacy and being close, but I also want the audience to be a little uncomfortable.

There’s this fear I have of over-explaining, of being too prescriptive, or just documenting and observing a person so that you understand everything. I want to intentionally disorient the audience from time to time, to enter scenes the way I want to and push the experience in a way that I find interesting, rather than just explaining what’s wrong. It’s a way to make it a bit mysterious so that we can exist in the confusion together and be fascinated by some of these responses rather than feeling like we’re being told things.

Q. There’s a looseness to your films—in the dialogue, shooting style, and pacing. Yet, every scene in them feels perfectly placed. How do you piece together a film made from largely improvisational scenes?

A. There’s no one simple answer. Piecing things together and timing them is a big part of the process. While we shoot for a long period of time, we’re cutting as well. I’ve worked with the same editor on all my films for almost 20 years now. We went to film school together. Her name is Ajla Odobasic and she has cut all my shorts and all four features.

Piecing it together is a game that we like to play, even in terms of coverage. That it’s always improvised could be a nightmare for some people, but I think we like that. We like it as a puzzle, but even more so, including ellipses and experimenting with the structure of the film. There was a three-hour cut of Matt and Mara — we experimented quite a bit with it.

Q. Where have you found inspiration that people might not necessarily expect?

A. This makes me want to hype directors who I think don’t get enough credit.

I take a lot of inspiration from fellow Canadian filmmakers, especially English-language directors that are making interesting things. Ashley McKenzie, Antoine Bourges, and this year in particular Sophia Bohdanowicz, who has a film this year she made with Deragh Campbell called Measures for a Funeral.

But even more so than that, there were a wave of directors just before me that weren’t in English-speaking Canada. One director in particular is a really good friend of mine: Nicolás Pereda, who has a film playing at TIFF in Wavelengths. Nico studied in Toronto but has made most of his films in Mexico. He’s always been a massive inspiration — filmmakers like him made us realize that we can make films like this in Canada and that they could play around the world. Similarly, there’s a French-Canadian director, Denis Côté, who is incredibly experimental, artistic, and prolific.

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

A. There’s two Denis Côté-isms I remember. The first piece of advice was that you have to open your own doors and not wait for the perfect film, funding scheme, or producer to make your own work. But the thing I really remember is that he says that he makes “revenge films.”

He’ll make a film for 5 or 6 million with some big French or Quebecois actor and then he’ll make the next film for like $10,000 or $50,000 — he calls those “revenge films.” That’s something I think about a little bit too. But I don’t oscillate back-and-forth, it’s almost like every one of my films is a “revenge film.”

Q. What are you reading right now?

A. I am reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being — a long overdue blind spot. I just started it last week. And Dennis Lim’s book on Tale of Cinema.

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

A. The new Victor Erice film: Close Your Eyes.

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

My bookshelf. What’s nice about doing these Zoom interviews is that you can see my bookshelf and we shot a lot of the film in my apartment, so it’s nice to feature it. It kind of represents the mixture of the film being based on my life, but then also how fiction changed it into a movie.