Josephine Decker has a plan.
“I have this crescendoing dream of creating a residency for movies without scripts. That’s how I made my short ‘A Stable Marriage.’ We basically had one paragraph, and then we spent a whole day improvising together. It was so much fun and so refreshing,” she tells Variety.
Decker has directed award-winning dramas “Madeline’s Madeline” and “Shirley” with Elisabeth Moss.
She’s adamant – when the industry is struggling, a sense of community is everything.
“I don’t write alone. I either write with a community or build stuff with actors. Of all my films, ‘Madeline’s Madeline’ is probably closest to my heart because I never felt like the idea was totally mine. It emerged from many people and many minds, not just one,” she says.
At this year’s Tauron American Film Festival, Decker will receive the Indie Star Award. Previous recipients include Jesse Eisenberg, John Waters and Christine Vachon.
Recently, Decker made “Chasing Summer” with star comedian Iliza Shlesinger.
“I think Iliza was interested in working with me because she wanted the film to feel artistic. I was thinking: ‘What’s an art comedy?’ ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ was the only one I could think of, so I watched it a bunch of times. It was fun to push myself in that way. I don’t always do that,” she recalls.
Urszula Śniegowska, director of the festival, says, “Her stories and protagonists, mostly female artists, illustrate Josephine’s own struggles as a woman in a changing art world. This retrospective has been a long time coming, and the new film provided the perfect opportunity to celebrate her complete body of work.”
Decker grew up watching ambitious films. Maybe even too ambitious for her age.
“My father is a poet and a film buff. I just remember watching esoteric Mongolian cinema with him when I was 11. One of the first films he showed me was ‘Andrei Rublev,’” she laughs.
“The other thing that really informed my filmmaking is that my mum is a mother of three, and my dad was traveling a lot. Every time we went to the movies, we were late. I missed the first 10 minutes of pretty much every movie in my childhood. My concept of cinema was that you were sculpting a narrative out of something you don’t totally understand.”
As a director, she also likes to provide the audience with a “real, visceral experience.” But the situation with indie filmmaking has changed “dramatically.”
“Since Trump came into office, it has become much harder. The first time he was elected, everyone’s integrity was still intact. But America is pretty much run by corporations and they now know how vindictive he is. Everyone has bowed to him in different ways. It’s just survival in a capitalist society.”
She adds: “The things that are getting funded are very safe and appeal to his audience, or ensure they don’t piss his audience off.”
That doesn’t mean that people aren’t trying to be creative, though.
“Take films like ‘Obsession,’” she says.
Curry Barker’s horror, produced for just $750,000, became one of the biggest box-office successes of the year.
“Filmmaking is lonelier than ever, probably just because the world is lonelier than ever,” she notes.
“It’s harder than it has ever been in my 20 years of working in this industry. It’s crushing for young folks trying to get started. So many industry players have not been able to make money because the streamers control everything, also because of all these consolidations and mergers. What shocked me when I took my film to Sundance this year was realizing that there are now only three buyers in the American market: HBO, Netflix and Amazon.”
The answer? Try to embrace the process.
“We put all this pressure on ourselves to get our movie made because we think it’s going to ‘save our souls’. Art won’t save you. But the process [of making it] could,” she states.
“At a time like this, when it’s hard to get things made, it’s important to think about the parts of the process that we love, adore and crave. Making work is really fun. So, so fun! Instead of sitting alone in a room desperately sending your script to everyone in the world, you’re with your friends, writing in community,” she says.
“I’ve never really given this advice before, but find the process you love. Then, hopefully, you’ll eventually get to apply it to cinema, but maybe apply it to your life first.”
