What do you know about Luana Di Pasquale? Well, she is, handily for the involvement with the 5th Femme Filmmakers Festival, a writer and director of films. One who is currently buzzing around the festival circuits with her eerie, compelling short film, KEEP MUM.
What else do we know? Luana has studied in Milan, in London, written and directed talk shows, commercials documentary shorts. Created her own independent production company, Lunadipas Films. Impressed?
What else do you know about Luana Di Pasquale? That her latest short film KEEP MUM is partly pulled from personal trauma, family secrets, dwelling within her and later expressed creatively through film. KEEP MUM explores the dark and the light of our psychology. A film sprinkled with horror, surrealism, anticipation, involving it’s audience by holding them against a wall then throwing them to the ground.
Want to know more about Luana Di Pasquale? Then read on…
questions by Morgan Roberts and Robin Write
FILMOTOMY: If you could work on a film or series about a historical woman, who would it be and why?
LUANA DI PASQUALE: My 12-year-old niece recently read Anne Frank, and we would talk for hours about Anne, and how she tried to survive the adversities of the time while writing her diary. Now my niece wants to pursue her writing journey and become a journalist one day. And seeing the way that Anne Frank inspired my niece has been an inspiration for me too.
So Anne Frank would be the young woman I’d love to make a film about, and I’d tell it through the eyes of a young girl reading her diary today. I love working with children on set and outside the set. In London, I run a filmmaking workshop for children. So making a film about Anne’s experience of survival through the eyes of a child today will be something I would love to explore thanks to my lovely niece!
What was the film to inspire you to be a filmmaker? What about that film ignited your passion for film?
My passion for films originally comes from painting. As before I studied film I did a diploma in Fine Art and Architecture. During my time at the Liceo Artistico Primo di Brera, in Milan, as part of my diploma studies, I did a module on film. And a film which really made an impression on me then was Blade Runner. For being both a beautiful work of art and an insightful study of what it means to be human.
I then went to UAL to do a BA in Film Production, where I studied Hitchcock’s work and graduated as a writer/director. Certainly Hitchcock inspired me to build pace, mystery and suspense, and to use symbolism and metaphors in my own work.
Another filmmaker in particular who has been a great influence in terms of the subjects I like to explore – such as trauma, consciousness and the psyche – is David Lynch. His mind-blowing films inspire me to create atmospheric stories that reflect the many layers that make up the human experience.
Tell us about KEEP MUM. What were your influences on this – both personal and from the film world?
My connection to the subject treated in KEEP MUM stems from my personal experience of the trauma, secrecy and grief that are all part of the cycle of domestic violence. When I was a child, my aunt disappeared, though her body was never found and she is now presumed dead. Only later in life was the truth of her disappearance revealed to me.
And I came to realise how much this ugly secret had affected me and my family’s psyche: the consequences of a deep dark secret like that are relentless. And so, intending to explore the psychological and emotional trauma of the cycle of domestic abuse, paying particular attention to the children – the hidden victims of this endemic phenomenon – I wrote KEEP MUM.
How did you cast the film? How do you work with such a strong character with the actress who essentially carries the whole film?
I wrote the script with the intention of exploring the secrecy of domestic abuse. And as soon I finished writing it I realised that I had written it for my dear friends, the actress Nadira Murray (Mum) and her eight-year-old son Cameron (Mum’s son, Danny). When I presented her with the story, she was delighted as she loved script.
However, I still wanted Nadira to go through a casting because I wanted her to own the role. I did not want her to feel that she got the part just because we are friends. And I still have the “casting file” today and it is amazing, Nadira nailed it and I remember her face being surprised by her own performance. I had no doubt.
You see, Nadira is a very talented actor, with a charismatic presence. More importantly, she has the intellectual, emotional and psychological understanding of Mum’s character, having played successfully Medea at the theatre a few years earlier. I knew she could handle the magnitude of Mum’s character and carry the whole film and deliver a performance that would be remembered.
We spent considerable time rehearsing which when you do an independent short film is not always the case. We worked hard. It was fun, a very special time.
How did the film evolve from the first idea to the audience reactions?
The first idea for KEEP MUM came to me in December 2017 and it took me a week to write the script. It was about 6/7 pages long and had all the scenes in the house apart from the one in the utility room. Which began as a launderette, but I realised that didn’t make sense as I was portraying a middle-class family.
I then developed the script over the course of a year through my own personal research and working with my actors. The development stage certainly brought the script up to 11 pages which now included the scenes in which we experience Mum’s inner world.
For example, Danny’s line, “SOS – Save Our Souls…” was something Cameron kept saying in the car while we were driving on the coastline while location scouting. Hearing him say this, I felt I had to have it in the script, and it became a kind of leitmotif. There was something just so honest – so eerie – about Danny asking Mum to “Save their Souls”. Before I knew it I was basing all of Danny’s characterisation on Cameron and his interests. Especially his love of the sea, and certainly this helped his performance as he isn’t a professional actor.
After one year of development, the script became more detailed and so did my direction. I write what I see and this is great for both the cast and HODs. As I had a very clear vision and communication in regard to what I wanted to achieve with KEEP MUM.
So far the audience reactions and feedback have been wonderful and KEEP MUM has won several awards. It has been screened at film festivals in Portland, Austin, Chicago, Istanbul, Bodrum, London. And is soon to be
screened in New Orleans and Toronto (screening available here).
Unfortunately – due to COVID – I haven’t been able to witness an audience react to the film live. Hopefully soon I’ll actually be able to see an audience, and the film, in a cinema.
What worked better than you had imagined?
What worked better than I imagined was the way the story is told, the way I could tell it through Mum’s psyche. Specifically, I am referring to the scenes in which we explore Mum’s inner world. There is something very intimate about these moments, giving us insight into Mum’s behaviour throughout the film.
You see, guilt feels like fear – in fact, guilt is fear – and Mum’s fear comes from her great sense of guilt for having failed as a mother in protecting her child. I wanted to show how intrinsic and real Mum’s guilt is and the coastline represents this as it is the site where, in the company of his dad, Danny disappeared – whether accidentally or not – and never returned to Mum.
What parts of the film did you have to change during production?
After 3 days of shooting, I managed to take home 53 shots instead of the 63 I
was aiming for. So there were parts of the script I had to let go of, parts which would have looked good but they were not essential to the narrative.
#MeToo and #TimesUp have been attempting to push for systemic industry changes. What are some ways that these movements are working? What are some changes we should continue to work toward?
#MeToo movement deals with sexual violence and it aims to end it. It also gives survivors of sexual abuse a voice and unites them, making them feel not alone.
#TimesUp movement deals with workplace equity and creating equal economic opportunities for women and people of colour. However, both movements work together to break the silence about sexual violence/harassment/assault, and to restore equality in the workplace.
As long as we don’t KEEP MUM about those issues, we can create more opportunities for those who are struggling. We can bring justice and equality not only at work but also at home, I believe. So breaking the silence is crucial if we want to make further changes. The more people open up about those issues, the more solutions can be found and more opportunities for women can be created.
Who is a woman in the film industry that we should know more about?
Luana Di Pasquale! In all honesty, there are so many women in the film
industry we should know more about and hopefully it won’t be long before we will. Which means more systematic changes in the film industry to give more opportunity to women to get their work out there.
However, if I have to choose one woman, then last year I came across the French filmmaker Eléonore Pourriat and her bold short film Oppressed Majority. Which depicts a man experiencing a sexual assault in a matriarchal society. A few years later, her short film became a Netflix’s feature film… Check her out, she made a bold move by showing things the other way round. Making men experience what women are subjected to every day!!!
What have you learned about yourself during the lockdown period?
The lockdown period meant for me – time for reflection, healing, loving, writing, being creative and planning. Indeed I made the most of my solitude. What I learned about myself is that I am a resilient person who always thinks of new ways to tackle problems especially at times of crisis. That I have so much love inside of me and that I want to move to the countryside to build my own farm. And give that love back to mother nature while producing my slate of genre films of female-driven stories that journey deep into the human psyche, pushing the boundaries of perception.
What was a favourite film as a child that you still love today?
One film really stuck with me, was Christiane F., a story of a teen girl in 1970s Berlin who becomes a heroin addict. We see her life spiralling down as she befriends a small crew of junkies and falls in love with a drug-abusing male prostitute. A very dark story but beautifully shot. What struck me was its realism. The way it was filmed and how the story was told through the eyes of a 13 years old Christiane. With the magnificent David Bowie’s soundtrack was just perfect in capturing the 70s mood of the city and its teens.
Indeed, heroin is a substitute for love and those kids were looking for the love lacking in their lives. I know their pain. It started as just fun thing to do. To take drugs and it then turns out to be their worst nightmares. You feel each every moment, the fun, the struggle, the sorrow, the injustice and the grief. Christine F. was based on the 1978 Christiane Vera Felscherinow’s memoir We Children from Zoo Station. I highly recommend the book and the film.
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