Let’s start with the script, because it’s so beautifully rendered. It’s co-written, and I don’t believe the short film this grew out of was co-written. Can you talk about that?
Rashad Frett: This was during COVID, 2020. Lin Que Ayoung was a classmate at NYU, a year ahead of me, and she became the co-writer.
I never thought about a Hungarian population in Canada. One of the themes running through this film for me was isolation. You shot Jeremy in isolation a lot, but he’s not the only one.
SR: I try to do as much as I can visually without having it be in the dialogue or without it being explicit and trusting that the audience will pick up on the nuances of the visual language. A big part of that was shooting on Vancouver Island.
I heard you entered the Python Challenge a year before shooting. What did you learn from that experience?
Xander Robin: Thanks for watching the movie! I actually live in South Florida right now. I grew up there, lived in New York for a little bit, but I was trying to make a movie in South Florida.
The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Mad Bills to Pay. What was the genesis of this film and how did it become a feature?Joel Alfonso Vargas: It kind of happened during lockdown. I had some projects that I was trying to set up just before that […]
I understand this film is based on a story that really resonated with you?
Sergey Loznitsa: The film is based on a story by Georgy Demidov, who was arrested in 1938 and spent nearly fourteen years in prison camps.