The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight.

Congratulations on this powerful and sensitive film. When did Alexandra Fuller’s book first come to your attention, and what made you want to adapt it and take on so many roles?
Embeth Davitz: I read the book when it came out in 2003, and it just stayed with me. Though Alexandra grew up in Zimbabwe and I moved to South Africa at eight, there were so many parallels: children growing up surrounded by conflict, absorbing their parents’ beliefs, yet sensing the world was shifting under their feet. The characters, the child’s voice… it all resonated. I knew I wanted to focus on that fragile, electric time when her sister died and the war was ending. The mother’s heartbreak, the land, the loss… it was all so layered. I ended up expanding parts and writing many drafts myself until it felt true.

It wasn’t about me. It was about that child’s fragile, raw spirit.

The casting of Bobo is extraordinary. How did you find this young girl, and how did you work with her to get such a natural performance?
ED: It was probably the biggest challenge. We auditioned lots of kids through casting directors, but they felt too rehearsed, too polished. I needed a wild, unfiltered spirit; someone who hadn’t learned to “act.” So we put out a broad casting call across Southern Africa. A woman saw the post and sent in a photo of her daughter. The moment I saw her face, I thought, “That’s her.” She was seven, turned eight by the end of the shoot, and so alive. I didn’t want to suppress her spark by making her memorize lines. Instead, I fed her lines off-camera, distracted her, threw things at her. It was unpredictable and sometimes chaotic, but it captured that sense of a child who isn’t aware she’s performing. She was like that perfect cat in The Godfather: you couldn’t train it, you just captured it.

The film handles mature, sometimes brutal topics: racism, violence, the mother’s cruelty. And yet you chose not to show graphic violence. How did you navigate that line?
ED: Honestly, budget forced my hand. We didn’t have the money to stage large violent battle scenes. But in hindsight, it was a blessing. The war was horrifying, but you can imply horror more powerfully than showing it outright. So I used the radio a lot. People always had it on for news… and old TVs flickering in the background. You see a child eating a cookie while a man’s brains are blown out on screen. That’s the world she’s absorbing. It’s what’s behind the decaying walls of her family’s farm. I layered in music and sound: something rumbling in the hills, always approaching. That tension of unseen violence felt truer to how children sense danger.

Speaking of sound and music, how did you use them to support Bobo’s perspective?
ED: Sound design became one of the biggest storytelling tools in the edit. Each character has a theme—Bobo’s is light and bright at first, reflecting her innocence. As things unravel, that same tune distorts, drops a key, takes on an unsettling edge. Sarah has a beautiful, haunting theme. Sound works on the unconscious. It’s memory, it’s grief, it’s the voice of the land. I also layered in Zimbabwean poetry and the sounds of nature. The world felt alive that way… like the hills themselves were whispering.

The mother is such a difficult character… Racist, bitter, at times monstrous. Was it hard, as an actress, to make yourself so unlikeable?
ED: Incredibly hard. There’s always that ego voice saying, “Can’t we soften her just a bit?” But I had to stay true. There’s a moment you glimpse her grief: her children are buried on that land. She clings to it like it’s all she has left. But that doesn’t excuse her. I wanted Sarah, the black housekeeper, to rise as the quiet hero. That final shot (Bobo turning back to see Sarah as queen) was my way of showing what stays with her. What matters isn’t the mother’s bitterness: it’s the woman who rooted her to the earth and helped her survive.

You bought the rights hoping to play the mother. Did you always plan to direct too?
ED: Not at all. I spent years writing draft after draft, hoping to find a director who would understand the layers: the politics, the grief, the complicated point of view of a white child raised with deep-seated racism yet beginning to see through it. I couldn’t find that match, so I stepped in. It felt terrifying but necessary. By then, honestly, I didn’t want to act in it anymore. But in the end, it made me keep the focus on Bobo. It wasn’t about me. It was about that child’s fragile, raw spirit.

The title is so unusual. What does it mean?
ED: It comes from a British humorist: “Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight, for mother will be there.” In England, you say something’s “gone to the dogs” when it’s fallen apart. So it’s like: let’s not go there, because we know who we’ll find at the bottom: Mother. Alexandra Fuller’s memoir is really about her broken mother at its heart. And yes, there were always dogs—chaotic, loyal, half-wild. Her mother still lives on a farm in Zambia with ten dogs. The chaos of it just seemed right.