One of the most unusual (that’s a compliment) offerings at this year’s Femme Filmmakers Festival is Softer. Created by Ayanna Dozier, Softer is an examination on an aspect of body image as seen through society but of black women. This particular experimental effort follows the discourse of personal grooming, and fixing of the hair, but the underlining themes are just as strong. Softer echoes the historical and contextual images of black women in its use of vivid music and colours.
Director, Ayanna Dozier, agreed to speak to Filmotomy about the journey of a female filmmaker, as well as telling us about Softer and all its implications. Dozier considers herself a conceptual artist, with a firm grasp on how art can depict the true nature of the world we live in and the identity we want to maintain. Softer is playing in the Showcase Selection of FemmeFilmFest20.
questions by Morgan Roberts and Robin Write
What was the film to inspire you to be a filmmaker? What about that film ignited your passion for film?
I am going to cheat and give two films that are shorts: Maya Deren’s Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) and Barbara McCullough’s Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979).
As a ritualist, to encounter film as a ritual exercise was an extraordinary experience. And made filmmaking seem possible for what I do and want to do as an artist working in the medium. Ritual in Transfigured Time manipulates time and emotion in inventive ways to draw out a devastating narrative of unrequited love. Whereas, Water Ritual #1 uses rituals of ancestral remembrance to aide in the self-actualization of Black womanhood during a period of global and political unrest and change.
What is a film genre you have never worked in before that you want to try out?
Horror
What has been the most unexpected thing you have learned about filmmaking?
A film is a version of what you expect it to be; there are numerous decisions made before, during, and after that give you a framework of what to expect but even then, what you envision and what you produce may not align. For me, I like to lean in to the unexpected nature of film and leave projects as something that I can return to and expand upon, rather than as ‘finished’ objects with no further use.
What were you trying to say with the use of contrasting colours and black and white, as well as the grainy quality of the film?
Several things, but two majors concepts I was mimicking in style were the British Pathé infomercials on women’s beauty routines in the early to mid-twentieth century and ‘archival footage’. What I mean by archival is that I want Softer to stand “in place”, to an extent, of the historical imagery of Black beauticians with Majorie Joyner’s permanent wave machine and hair care that we do not have access to as actual archival footage. I want to place tension on what images and experiences of Black womanhood do we value or respect when it comes to ‘historical’ images and how might this film trouble those images?
The use of color feeds into archival-aesthetic for our perception of Black life early to mid-twentieth century culture is often affixed to B&W imagery. So much so that we perceive color photography as ‘liberating’ Black life from the ‘past’; making it ‘real’. I suppose what my work across color and B&W is suggesting is, what if color, in the archives, is also perceived to be equally as ‘inauthentic’ and part of the past as B&W?
Speaking of contrasts, the music and the male voice-over also shake you up a little as you watch. Are you also mimicking old styles again? Adverts? How do you feel these different styles aid your important message?
Yes, I am mimicking the male VO from the British Pathé infomercials. But I am also mimicking the idea of a male voice being the voice of authority in relaying women’s beauty to an audience. I edited several versions with my voice as the VO and it did not sync up in practice.
A friend notified me of James Bennett II, who has done work at New York Public Radio, and it completely shifted the pace, tone and feel of the short. So much that I had to re-edit it to accommodate that change.
Nicolas Weise, Lars Scherzberg, and John Hughes’ “Eleven’s Sake,”(2008) draws out the terror behind the smiling faces. As the owner of the permanent wave machine in the film, it’s a terrifying object and quite intimidating. I suppose, I am interested in that thin line of when do beauty rituals actually become exercise in sadomasochism?
What is your post-production process? How does your original idea alter during this time?
Greatly. As stated, I welcome change and assume that the version I end up with will only be one version of the work completed. I had the film developed and scanned and then I edited the film across four months until I had a version that I was happy with in its ‘final’ form. I shot three rolls of 16mm film and had 2 b-rolls of 16mm film (roughly 20 minutes of footage), so there were and still are many possibilities for this work that can be realized.
What is it like sharing your film for the first time? Who do you prefer to share it with first?
Ack! No one. I took four years off from my artistic practice to pursue my PhD and resumed art-making again in 2018. So I am still quite insecure, at times, about my artistic practice. When I finish something that I am satisfied with, I just go with my gut instinct. I suppose this instinct is aided by the fact that I do talk endlessly with my friends who are artists about works in progress before I complete them and gauge their responses from my ramblings, which inform how I approach a work.
Who is a woman in the film industry that we should know more about?
So many! Here is one: Shari Frilot, experimental filmmaker and chief curator of the New Frontier program at Sundance.
Money, time, commitment no object, where in the world would you go right now?
Reynisfjara Beach in Iceland.
Which film do you wish you had written or directed?
Ticket of No Return/Portrait of a Drunken Woman (1979 ) by Ulrike Ottinger
As a director, how do you facilitate your vision? Sometimes, people share their opinions on set. How do you take in those opinions while executing your vision for the film?
I am fortunate that I have an expansive artistic practice that stems from a musical theatre background and a clear critical voice on film from my work as a scholar. These experiences make me feel secure in communicating what I want and how I want something to be done with others.
In musical theatre, I was both a technical operator and on-stage actor/performer, which gave me a reflexive response to the process. So I know how to convey my vision of the work in a way that makes sense for what the actor’s ‘vision’ is of themselves might be in that work.
With regards to opinions, I listen. Communication is essential for anything that I do. And usually when someone has an opinion it is because they might distrust the process or feel uncomfortable, so I try to honor that feeling. However, if I am receiving a lot of opinions, it usually means that I was not clear at expressing what I want. I try to circumvent unnecessary opinions by being extremely through with my vision (even crafting mood boards for the actors in the film) so that they see where I am coming from and my approach to the work.
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