Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Sean Kellyanne Movies podcast. And this is a special double episode where I will present my remaining interviews from the Fantasia Film Festival from earlier this year. So first up will be with directors Hannah Barlow, and Kane sends for the film Sissy, which was actually my favorite film from fantasy do this year. And the film is now available to stream on Shudder, and it has been on the streaming service since September 29.
Then next would be my interview with director Casey Carthew and star viva Lee for the film Polaris, which will be having its Toronto premiere this week at the blood in the Snow film festival. So I hope you enjoy these interviews. Warning, our interview for Sissy contains some spoilers.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Okay, so where did the idea for Sissy come from?
[00:01:34] Speaker C: There were lots of points of inspiration. I think the film touches upon childhood bullying, social media, the consequences of social media on millennial and Gen Z, mental health, self victimization, being proselytized through social media.
So all of those things were, yeah, big draw cards for us as writers. And then, you know, on a personal level, the consequences of not clearing your childhood wounding, I think, is universal. So.
[00:02:05] Speaker D: Yeah, and they're just wanting to make a fun slasher film out of all of that.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: So what were some of the influences on the film?
[00:02:15] Speaker D: Well, I guess it's a kind of meeting in the middle of, you know, y two k kind of female friendship comedies, coming of age films, kind of whether it be bridesmaids or Muriel's wedding.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: Crossroads.
[00:02:30] Speaker D: Crossroads. And then kind of clashing that, I guess, up against, you know, Carrie and single white female and many, many slasher movies, you know, whether it be kind of Halloween or the Friday the 13th series, all the way up to kind of scream and kind of the nineties version of the Sasha. I mean, it's. Yeah, there's many influences.
Not all obvious ones, I suppose.
Yeah.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, in a very weird way, I kind of got like a, I spit on my grave vibe. Nothing because of the rape part, but because of the revenge part.
[00:03:10] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, I guess. I guess. I mean, well, that's a compliment. I mean, that's such a iconic film, but yeah, I mean, revenge. Revenge narratives are fun. You know, we all have kind of that fantasy in us that we want to get even with our bullies.
And I think that's why those movies work so well.
I mean, a big part of it was kind of like, what if Muriel's wedding, I don't know if. You see, I haven't seen Muriel.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: I know it's Tony Clint.
[00:03:41] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And it's an australian classic that we all grew up with. It's on tv like it was on.
[00:03:45] Speaker C: Tv every weekend, every Friday night, and you grow up thinking it's a broad comedy, and that's how it's pitched. But it's actually really, really dark.
[00:03:53] Speaker D: Yeah. And not to give anything away about the film, but kind of what would happen in Muriel's wedding, for example, if Muriel got revenge on all the mean girls. And that's. That's, I think, where. That's, I think, in many ways, where Sisi comes from.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Okay, so, um.
So how difficult for you was to strike a balance between, um, Cecilia being a sympathetic character and someone who's maybe a little off kilter?
[00:04:19] Speaker C: Well, I think that we all have that duality existing within us as individuals. Um, we. There are parts of us that are likable and accessible and open and expanding, and there are also parts of us, and we tend to hide those parts that are flawed and destructive and catastrophic and catastrophizing and self sabotaging. But what we're presenting online all the time is the filtered, best portfolio version. So, you know, if we're going to make. We're going to make a film, we'll talk about these sort of consequences of social media on us as a generation. The character has to be emblematic of both the good and the bad parts of Instagram and TikTok and all of that. So I think if you.
I think people like Cecilia, I think they agree with her. I think they want to see her get away with her fantasy, her revenge fantasy, because we all have one, we just hide it better than she does, and we don't necessarily act on it the way that she does, but we're turning the dial up on those dark aspects of our personality.
[00:05:29] Speaker D: Well, that's why we watch films, right? Because we get to see characters do the things that we can't do in real life.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: So inventor's Cecilia's friendship with Emma, which is one of the driving forces in the plot. So the question is raised in the film whether they were truly that close, or if, as Cecilia suggests at one point, that Emma is just feeling pity for her.
[00:05:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that a lot of female friendships, a lot of young women go through the same thing, which is the first heartbreak as a girl is with your best friend. We all go through that period where you're intoxicated by this other person. They become a part of your identity.
That first friendship is so palpable, and then the cool girl comes along and drives a wedge between you and that person. And it's devastating. It's absolutely devastating. And we wanted to capture that. But, you know, is, is it reciprocated? Is a reciprocated relationship? We're not sure.
When you see Emma run into Cecilia at the chemist, you think it is. But Emma's like, I think we think she's the villain of the movie. She is inconsistent, she's unreliable, she's not accountable.
And Alex is the clear bully, but she is at least honest. And we have this sort of, like, triangle of friendship, which is really common for young girls.
[00:06:58] Speaker D: So, yeah, at the same time, you know, like, you, you can't control how other people treat you. You can only control how you react. And so, you know, Shaw, Emma and Alex in many ways for how they treat Cecilia. But it's really up to Cecilia to have self responsibility, have self responsibility and accountability, and instead of just suppressing those feelings only for them to, I guess, come out in these bursts of rage or whatnot, it would probably be better for her to really kind of to practice the mindfulness, which is what she's preaching, which is, ironically what she's preaching. But sometimes it's a lot easier to give advice than to apply it to yourself.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting that you mentioned Alex, because when she's introduced, she's pretty much, from Cecilia's perspective, a full on villain. But as the film progresses, you start to wonder if maybe the feelings Alex had about Cecilia might not be that far off. So how did you go about writing the character?
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Oh, I think, yes, she is the clear villain.
I think it came from a place of pondering the things that people say about you, the criticisms that they have or the rejection that you experience as a young person, because not everybody's gonna like you.
[00:08:26] Speaker D: The things that cut deep that you don't like about yourself, that someone actually kind of. That they verbalize, you know, it stays.
[00:08:34] Speaker C: With you, it sticks to you, it forms your personality, in a sense, and it's up to you to not attach to those criticisms. But, yeah, Alex. Alex is right about Cecilia, but only because Cecilia allows it, only because she kind of leans into that perception and allows it to control her. So that was kind of the inspiration.
[00:08:56] Speaker D: She's not necessarily right in how she goes about it and how she treats us because there's no real need to bully anybody ever. But she does have a view of Cecilia that I think Cecilia kind of deep down, probably is insecure about in the first place.
[00:09:12] Speaker C: But it's the chicken or the egg, right? Because if she hadn't bullied Cecilia as a young person, Cecilia might not have reacted and she might not have evolved into this, like, supervillain.
[00:09:21] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So pretty much one of the ultimate theme of the film is how bullying can affect someone's mental health, with the film obviously going to the biggest extremes. So do you think Cecilia would have been better off if she actually sought real therapy instead of becoming a social media influencer, which actually seems to be a toxic outlet of self gratification?
[00:09:46] Speaker D: Yeah, I think so. I think. I think there's never anything, there's never any downside to self introspection and kind of like confronting yourself in the mirror with a professional. With a professional and doing some work on yourself. You know, I don't think, um, I don't think we kind of want to necessarily say that there's anything intrinsically wrong, uh, with mental health advocacy online, because if, if, you know, some young kid who doesn't maybe have access or, or know how to approach a therapist can, can come upon something on social media that is helpful, then that, that's, that's not a bad thing. You know, you'd kind of rather they be thinking about their mental health and their mindfulness, rather than just kind of, you know, increasing their comparison anxiety from looking at swimsuit models and whatnot, worshipping the Kardashians, worshipping kind of ultimately kind of toxic kind of view of themselves. But at the same time, you have to be very careful because these people that are influencers and that are in these positions of power online, like, who put them there and what qualifies them to have that kind of influence, especially on young minds. So I think it's a mixed bag and it's a fine line, but I do think one day, hopefully, mental health, mental education will be on the same level, say, from school, as physical education is. I mean, we all grow up with kind of phys ed, but do we grow up with mental ed? You know, our society is very behind in that way, but I think we are pushing in the right direction with kind of mental health awareness in the last, I don't know, five or so years. So it's a good thing. But the online space is still a very unregulated. Exactly.
Potentially dangerous place.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: Very dangerous.
[00:11:39] Speaker D: Yeah. So as long as we're aware of that, no one's going to really kind of protect you from it other than yourself. So we kind of just, the more we talk about that stuff, the better.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Well, thanks.
[00:11:51] Speaker D: Thank you. Thanks, Sean.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Now here's my interview for Polaris having its Toronto premiere as part of the Blood and Snow film festival.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: How did you get the idea for Polaris?
[00:12:04] Speaker E: Yeah, thanks for asking. The idea came really. It was inspired by the story world, created in a short film called Fish out of water. And really, the elements there were the frozen north, these color palettes of white and gray and just a little bit bleak looking.
And in that story world, there was a woman and a young girl, and there was maybe some body parts that were taken. And it was also primarily nonverbal film that had a fictional language. And it's actually fans who reached out to me and said, oh, we want to see this as a feature. And it took a little while because I was busy with some other things, but ultimately, I thought, you know, I love that story world, so let's. Let's figure out how to play in there. And then when I went to create the actual story, I really feel like I just talked, talked out loud to you, universe, and was like, what's. What's. What's this story world? These are all the elements I want in there. And then I thought of the bear, and I thought of greek mythology and the little Dipper and the Big Dipper, and I just kind of. The flow is there. It not always is the case for me, and it really was for me on this project. Yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: So actually, I want to talk about the nonverbal aspect of the film. So that was your intention from the start?
[00:13:23] Speaker E: 100%. And I also was really adamant that I don't want to see subtitles. The idea, it's primarily non verbal, but when we do hear languages, they are fictional. And the intention is to show the world through the eyes of sumi. And she is raised by a polar bear, so she doesn't speak a human language. So to me, it doesn't make sense that, you know, the audience would then also sort of know this language.
The words and the forms of communication used, I think, are still really clear. Nobody's talking about philosophy. They're really, like, clearly about getting the prisoner doing. It's, like, very clear. Much like, if you go to a country and you don't speak the language, it's pretty clear if somebody's telling you off or saying nice things to you. So for me, that was always intentional. Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: So what's the bit of the specific backstory of this world? Because one very obvious thing in the film is that all the characters are female.
[00:14:27] Speaker E: Yeah. Yeah. We don't see the males, so we don't know. Did you ever thought about it?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Not really.
[00:14:34] Speaker E: So I created this as an even more ambitious project. I created it in my mind as a trilogy with Polaris being the second story. It's the sort of main story because it's the story of Sumi and it connects the other two story worlds. The first story is the backstory, so to speak. And the third story follows frozen girl's journey much closer, so you'll just have to wait and see.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So how did Viva get involved?
[00:15:06] Speaker F: Well, I auditioned for the first round of auditions and then nothing really happened. And then I auditioned the second time. It's a crazy story, actually. I pulled out my Ottomans, but they have wheels on the bottom of them, so I stuck rubber flip flops underneath them and I was jumping on them and I was screaming and yelling and I was, like, scratching near the camera. It's total crazy. I was like, let's just do this for fun since, you know, it's different. It's animalistic. And then I got a callback.
The callback thing. I think it went pretty well.
[00:15:42] Speaker E: It went okay. You know, it went okay. We had a lot of. A lot of. Viva was eleven when she played. Played sumi, and we had a lot of kids audition and there's so many wonderful actors out there, but it really felt like. And to Viva's point, she's just so self aware, but in the way that, like, she can be. Let it go. She can go all over the place, do anything with her voice. It's. It's kind of a fearless thing that I really, really respect it because as a director, once she's cast in the role, it's hers. Like, she's. And I need to know that somebody's gonna be, like, all over the place and vivas, all of that.
[00:16:26] Speaker F: So thank you.
[00:16:28] Speaker E: I am so proud of your performance. Yeah.
[00:16:30] Speaker F: Thank you.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: So could you talk a bit about working with a polar bear in the film?
[00:16:36] Speaker E: Yeah. Well, the polar bear is an amazing animal. Very exclusive. We've only known of one professional polar bear working in at least in North America and western Europe. And this is Aggie.
Been a working actor her whole life, since she was a cub. And she's now just retired. I think she's about 27 or 28 years old because of COVID actually. Just like all actors. When sets got shut down, she couldn't work for over a year. And her trainer said that he thinks she was sad about that. So actually, when we went to film with her, she was excited. She was super excited to roll around in the snow and play and that. That basically is the first scene of the film that you see, but working with her is extraordinary. She eats a lot of food. That's how she's kind of, you know, she's bribed into doing things and it's fascinating to watch. She got given a lot of treats and including croissants. And she's very Bougie, Bougie Bear. You know, she knows what she wants. So she, you know, she's an actor like anybody else and she has her needs and wants and she has her style of acting too. So it's pretty interesting because she genuinely is a performer. Yeah.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Any additions?
[00:18:05] Speaker F: No, I never got to work with the polar bear, but I did. No, I worked with the polar bear. I totally did.
Movie magic.
Yeah, pretty much.
I know everything. She was my best friend, filmed with her the entire time. Even if she wasn't in a scene, she was right beside me. Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: So speaking of magic, how would you describe the use of magic in the film? Because I kind of found that, like, sumi kind of, like, uses magic in, like, a matter of fact manner. Like, she, like, knew how to use it all her life. So how would you describe that?
[00:18:48] Speaker E: I think it is shown in a matter of fact way. We don't see her discover it. We right away see that she has a connection to the North Star and which is. Which is Polaris. Polaris is the north star and we see her I making these gestures. And so for me, that's just sort of one of the rules of this world that I right away wanted everyone to be really clear about. Like, she can do this and she follows the North Star, but nobody else does. Nobody else in the film even seems to see the North Star and nobody else seems to know about this. The only person who is very curious about it, who we see is Dee as sort of an ally, someone who's a morad who becomes an ally for Sumi. And she has the same tattoos that Sumi has on her hands. She has it sort of like a poster on her wall. And I think we understand that there is a huge significance to this, to this star. And the whole film is a fantasy film. And part of it is that use of magic. I mean, I love fantasy stories. There's always magic in them. There's always a sorcerer, there's always. I shouldn't say always, but often. Often, yeah. So, yeah, well, go ahead.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: This actually just came up for me. So you actually mentioned that Viva was eleven while filming. So while filming, did you kind of, like, have to work around the more violent moments of the film? Or was her family okay with it?
[00:20:28] Speaker F: I love gore.
[00:20:31] Speaker E: Ah, maybe do you want to start with that?
[00:20:35] Speaker F: Well, I am very protective of what I put into my brain. I mean, common sense media and IMDb parents guide are, like, my best friend. I always search up stuff before I watch it, but I think because I am an actor, and I. I know what goes on behind the scenes, I know that's, like, it's silicone with, like, corn syrup mixed with red food dye. I'm like, okay, I know it's fake, and sometimes I can tell it's fake, but, yeah, it just seems, like, not as bad for me. And I actually really enjoy to do gore, like, in films, like, killing people, and it's very fun, so thank you.
[00:21:13] Speaker E: And I would say, too, we had, for Viva playing sumi, we had a photo double for, you know, because we're aged, we can only work a limited number of hours in a day. So we had another actor to do shots where we're not seeing her face in particular, but we also had a stunt double for her. So some of the. Some of the really big stunts were done by her stunt double. But what I wanted to say is Viva, who's naturally athletic, and I feel like you're a stunt performer, at least officially now. I don't know stunts, but she so impressed our head of stunts that he gave the green light for her to do some stunts and was super impressed. She nailed them. And, you know, stunts are no joke. It's all about the safety. So if he hadn't thought that she was only gonna be excellent at that, he never would have done the green light. And, of course, we made everything safe. You know, her mom's on set, but, you know, viva has that skill and that love for it, too.
[00:22:20] Speaker F: I think I love stun so much. I do many different martial arts. I do taekwondo, jiu jitsu, boxing.
I did some wushu before.
I also do weapons like Bo staff sword, nunchucks, butterfly knife, et cetera. So I feel as though that played a part into it. So I was like, ooh, I like this because there's not many rules for young girls to do stunts and to kill people, so that was pretty fun.
[00:22:52] Speaker E: Yeah, true.
[00:22:55] Speaker F: Thank you.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Okay, so what's next for Polaris after fantasia?
[00:23:02] Speaker E: We. We don't know. We. We have been invited to some film festivals. We're not able to say which ones yet, just out of respect for the festivals. But in Canada, we will have theatrical distribution here and in the US as well. And those dates are to be determined, so we're really excited and super grateful to be able to, you know, to share the film with larger audiences. And hopefully, I mean, I know we all want Covid to be gone, so hopefully, you know, it ends right away so people can see it on the big screen, because it's such a difference when you see this film on the big screen and also when you hear it with an amazing surround sound system. And I think it helps you immerse yourself in the story. You know, you don't want to see Mad Max on your. I've watched it a thousand times, so I can watch it on a small screen, but the feeling in a theater is really one I wish for audiences. Yeah.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Okay. Any closing comments?
[00:24:01] Speaker F: I totally agree 100%.
When I was watching the film for the first time, it was my first time, I got chills on my back. I was numb. It was insane. I was like, oh, my God, this is incredible. I was in this with you. Oh, my God, I remember filming that scene, but it felt so entirely different. Insane.
[00:24:23] Speaker E: Movie magic. Movie magic. Yeah.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Okay, thanks.
[00:24:27] Speaker E: Thank you so much.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: And thanks.
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