Interview by Univers-L team on November 1th, 2010 for Univers-L.com
One can get the feeling that when the two main characters are not together, every woman that crosses their path is a potential love temptation. Does it mean “out of sight out of mind ?”
I don’t know. I think we were trying to get at the notion of what does commitment mean and when are you committed. That’s why we have that joke in there about taking down one’s online dating profile. When do you do that? When are you actually a couple? I think it also spoke to the sort of incestuous nature of the lesbian community. It’s a small gene pool unfortunately, at least in our experience, where everyone has either dated the same people and/or slept with them. It’s one of the things I don’t like about being a lesbian, so I think, in a way, we were acknowledging the complexities of that as well.
You probably have a bunch of anecdotes to tell us from the shooting. What’s your best memory ? The worst ?
My best memory is the first week of shooting. It was pretty amazing to have worked so hard on something and suddenly, there it is. Production is very stressful, but that first week was pretty stress free and fun.
My worst memory, standing on top of a building for hours in the freezing cold fog while we were shooting the alley scene. It lasted until 2 a.m. and I had to go onto the roof in order to hold onto the camera operators foot so it didn’t slide off the roof while shooting the scene. See, the life of a director is glamorous (and cold at times).
Casey is torn apart between two very different women: on the one hand, there is Lola, scatterbrain, crazy in love with her but who is afraid to commit and on the other hand there is Danielle, a warm blooded Latino ready to do anything just to take her back. If you were in her position, who would you choose ?
I think Lola because in a way, Danielle has already proved, in the past, that her priorities were not with Casey. She may play a good game, but the reason Casey had left her to begin with is that she wouldn’t really commit. Lola may struggle with commitment, but I think her heart is huge.
All the characters (especially the minor ones) are totally eccentrics. If you should spend one evening with one of them, which one would you end-up with ?
The girl in the park with the big black dog. Actually the big black dog (Alex) is mine as is the cat that really did bite Ashleigh’s toe (Elliot). I am with both of them every night, but I think the girl in the park would be fun to hang with. I do hang out with Jenoa in real life sometimes since she lives nearby, so maybe I’m biased.
With And Then Came Lola, did you want to make an activist movie ? Does the movie match your first idea ?
I wouldn’t call it an activist movie. I think Megan and wanted to make a fun film that lesbians would find funny and sexy and would end with a smile. Haven’t we had enough lesbian downer movies. I mean, just once, folks can leave the theatre smiling…..
You possess your own production company, Fast Girl Films. Are you currently working on new projects ? Is it difficult to set up projects and to raise funds for movies when they’re only dedicated to the LGBT community ?
Well, believe it or not, Megan and I still have to devote a lot of time to LOLA every week. The whole piracy thing has been a HUGE drag. It’s particularly frustrating to see a bunch of lesbian websites post illegal links to the film. I try to write them and explain that we paid for this film out of our own pocket. We had no theatrical release. The only way we can hope to repay our debts is through DVD and VOD sales. Lesbians complain there aren’t enough films about their lives, yet some don’t think twice about downloading the film for free. I hope we can educate those that do (in a nice way) to explain that we as lesbians need to support other lesbians who are working hard to create movies that reflect our lives.
At the very end of the credits, one can read that “all the animals and people appearing in the movie had been treated humanely (except the directors)”. Give us some details !
I think you can find the answer to that in my responses above….let’s just say movie-making is extremely hard work. When you are directing/producing/funding a project with no outside support, well, it wears you down. Those credits were written at the end of a verrrrrry long two years of work. J)
Megan Siler & Ellen Seidler