As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films?

Red. Blue. Green. Swim. Bathroom. Crying. Lifting. Exalted dance. Small inside. Melting personality. Melting fatigue. All night cigarette dance party. Fall asleep on the floor of the set. Messy reality. Inner turmoil. Beasts but good ones. Mask. Another mask. Masking tape on the mask. Tragedy but holding tragedy. A big hand holding it all together. Fond friendly absurd family of one making one thing being won. I held on tight to the woman I want to be and sometimes she slipped away and sometimes she appeared shimmering in front of us.

When you make something in deep collaboration, you sometimes have to know that the emotional wellbeing of the group should precede the day’s plan. The moments we stopped to collectively think and talk about what we were making and how to approach the material in the most enlightened way, we lost hours from our shoot day and gained years of wisdom. I am enormously grateful to the group of people who made this film with me.

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 22 at 3:00pm — PC Library]

Sundance 2018 Responses