Søren

Talking to independent filmmakers, it’s always fascinating seeing the different reasons and goals they have for making movies. They’re all really varied. And this sounds like something more classically avant-garde, which isn’t something I knew going in.

Cezil

And maybe part of it’s our fault in not promoting it the correct way. We tried – we always said it was an arthouse horror film with “balls and guts,” but maybe that there was a little too much classic American marketing behind it. I think we definitely should have pushed it more as experimental. Because when people think about arthouse, they think more Truffaut or Godard.

Søren

Or even Let the Right One In.

Cezil

Right – but no one’s thinking Man with a Movie Camera.

Søren

(Laughs.)

Cezil

And I think when you do that, you kind of throw people for a loop. There was one person who said they hated the movie so much there wasn’t even anything to make fun of. Because usually when you hate something, you can make fun of it to get some sort of pleasure out of it. But there wasn’t any of that for them to pick on, and I think that made people mad.

People were saying, “Oh, I hope they don’t show another shot of the trees and the sky.” (Laughs.) And then they’re like, “Oh sh**, they did it again.” And you know, we have a lot of shots like that. We have shots when we’ll hold on some trees for about 20 seconds. It’s definitely about mood and atmosphere. It’s not like watching Gravity – it’s not that type of film. But that was never the point.

Lydelle

I know it sounds like we’re kind of chewing ourselves out. But this is certainly a film that we stand by and we’re proud of.

Cezil

Oh it’s a beautiful film.

Lydelle

And just being in Spain at Stiges, I mean – I had people walk up to me and say, “Thank you for making this film.” So not to doubt ourselves too much. (Laughs.)

Søren

Right. Especially in the age of the internet, it’s tough to deal with immediate feedback. I mean, there are video game creators who have left the industry because of things like that. And the other thing is, if you put Man with a Movie Camera as a new movie in independent theaters now, you’d probably get a lot of backlash. That’s the nature of experimental films.

Cezil

In Man with a Movie Camera, in the first opening images, there’s a piece of subtitle text – I’m paraphrasing here – that says “This is a movie for all languages.” The point was to use a collage of visuals to communicate without the use of language. That was the experiment –

Søren

To tap into a universal pictorial language –

Cezil

Yeah. And I think with experimental film, that’s the whole point. To find a new way to communicate and use film and cinema to convey ideas – and if not convey ideas, to explore forms.

Søren

Now that you have this experience making this very experimental film, are you going to keep at it despite the lack of mass appeal? Or are you more interested in giving a more classical film a shot?

Cezil

Delle, you wanna take that?

Lydelle

We’re working on a number of projects right now. Actually, our next one we’re gonna do is definitely going to be more accessible. Definitely a more classic approach. I mean anything we do, we’re going to want to turn things on their head a little bit. As an artist, you’re always afraid of regurgitating – it’s all about progression.

We’re hopefully working on two soon: one’s going to be completely independent, and the other one’s going to have investors. But both are actually horror, and they’re very – as far as the presentation’s concerned, they’re both classic, but different.

Søren

Now is change in direction because of anything in particular? Or –

Lydelle

No, these are projects we thought up years ago. So it’s not a direct response to what happened in the past week at all.

Søren

I was just curious!

Lydelle

(Laughs.)