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| To Nowhere Photo: Mads Junker |
Sian Astor-Lewis’ coming-of-age drama, To Nowhere, sees two friends, Tulip (Lilit Lesser) and Finn (Josefine Glaesel) hanging around a quiet part of London. Aside from Tulip’s anxious struggle to express her romantic feelings for Finn, everything seems otherwise okay. Finn, however, has not confided in Tulip about a trauma that will change the dynamic of their relationship.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Astor-Lewis discussed her feature directorial début, the influence of European-esque art house cinema, and expressing a beauty and vibrance in grittier storytelling.
Casper Borges: Why film as a means of creative expression? Was there an inspirational or defining moment?
Sian Astor-Lewis: I suppose I fell into it. I started making films when I was 17. School had been a complete disaster and I had no idea where the hell I was going. A friend of mine asked me to help out with making a little film and it just grabbed me. I love the whole process of it - telling a story, piecing it together with visuals and characters. I fell in love with it and I haven't looked back since.
CB: We’re driven to explain why we think, feel and act the way we do, but sometimes these are questions without an answer.
SAL: I have racked my brain trying to work out why I'm absolutely compelled to take what is essentially this massive risk in my life and career. As a person and as a filmmaker, I'm driven by my instincts. All I know is that I had to pursue this, but I don't know why. Maybe I'll work it out one day, but for now, I just know it's a strong instinct.
CB: You say that, but finding the answer to a question kills the mystery. I’ve always found that conflict between needing to answer a question and preserving the mystery to be tantalising.
SAL: I completely agree. I quite like mysteries and questions you can't answer, whether it's about yourself or life, or whether it's about the characters in a film, or how the story is unfolding. I quite like that mysterious openness.
CB: I recall seeking advice from a novelist, who told me to try to look at writing a novel as a series of interconnected short stories. Having now directed your first feature, how do you compare the short and feature length formats, and is there merit in this advice?
SAL: That's an interesting thought because I also write short stories as prose, and I’ve had something published recently. I've been writing shorts for almost as long as I've been making films, and the core idea does often start with a short.
The idea for this story started with a little snapshot that I wrote, and the film ended up being what I filled in around this core scene, which is the climactic point of the film.
So that's writing wise, but in terms of filmmaking, if you're going to make a good short film, that’s 10-15 minutes, you still need to put so much heart and thought into it. Making a feature, you're extending that process, and there's an emotional and physical toll with that much more work, that’s a bit of a shock.
CB: Did that hit you making To Nowhere?
SAL: It's not that I wasn't expecting it, but there's a sort of relentlessness which is not the same. To be honest, the short films I made were micro-budget, and the longest one I shot was over four or five days. When you're making a feature, it's the amount of details that you have to think about in this low budget context. There's so much problem solving, and it's often a case of trying to resolve an emergency that's unfolding.
The most gruelling part was the years of post-production, because you have an adrenaline when you're in pre-production and on set - you have to make it work with an immediacy. The post-production took years because of our budget, and covid and the various lockdowns didn't help.
CB: The opening of the film is interesting because it’s filled with a humour, but as the story unfolds we realise that we’ve slipped down this rabbit hole, and are falling into a darker story. It’s not an act of deception or misdirection, instead it’s about what humour conceals.
SAL: It was definitely intentional. The film begins in a certain way, which feels like you maybe know where it's going. Maybe there’s more emphasis on a potential love story, but around the mid-point, there is a slight blip where it gradually becomes clear the film is heading in a much darker, grittier direction.
I wanted to embrace that it was a micro-budget indie film and I had this freedom - I didn't have to put it into a box of something more commercial. I was also inspired by the European-esque, art house structure, which you see less and less in modern cinema.
It’s that very exciting and unexpected structure, where you don't know where the story is going, and it almost has these little tangents and slight episodic nature. I wanted to use it for this story and to be with the characters as their journey is unfolding.
CB: Are there and particular filmmakers you’re referring to?
SAL: It's hard to sometimes distil what filmmakers do, because I almost don't have a direct influence from any. I pick and choose from so many different filmmakers, but on the subject of structure, [Pedro] Almodóvar is just wonderful. He’s very eccentric, non-linear, so you don't know where you're going and that's thrilling to watch. [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder and [Bernardo] Bertolucci as well.
There's a freedom which gives you the chance to express extreme emotions, something different from each of those filmmakers, whether it's cruelty or grief, or whatever they're expressing. I feel like there's a place in contemporary cinema for a little bit more of that.
CB: Have certain generations of European directors become too Americanised, in a war that compromises this European tradition?
SAL: I guess it depends who you're watching. Contemporary French filmmakers for example still have this freedom. It's hard to define, but maybe it's something that makes a film quite magical rather than just entertaining.
CB: Picking up on your point extreme emotions, I’ve the feeling you want us to be grounded in To Nowhere, which is complemented by a youthful and vibrant presence.
SAL: One of the things I love about films, both watching and making films, is that there’s something very grounding about the experience. It does demand a sense of being present even if it's not in your world, and the more tangible you can make that, the more powerful it is. Conversely, within that, I did want to portray a sort of disassociation of the characters due to trauma. I wanted there to be a dreaminess alongside a more physical embodied grittiness.
If you’ve experienced trauma or severe anxiety, or anything like that, there is this duality of life where it can also be really beautiful and vibrant. It’s almost this heightened experience of life and that's partly what I wanted to capture through the visuals - this slightly strange and uncanny beauty about the world, which sits closely to a visceral sense of horror.
To Nowhere is playing in UK cinemas now.
