"We hunger for stories as maps of survival"
Edition 8: Feature on the Woodstock Film Festival Residency, Part 1 — An interview with writer-director Alex Smith, Artistic Director of the Residency
Woodstock Film Festival Residency 2021 (L-R): Meira Blaustein, Eunice Lau, Set Hernandez Rongkilyo, Sabine Hoffman, Brooke Pepion Swaney, Maba Ba, Alex Smith
I am a life-long film fan and turn to movies as a comfort blanket to lift my moods or indulge them. My high school friends refuse to watch Pretty Woman with me because I say all the lines a second before Julia and Richard do, and I have a particular weakness for early-career, dialogue-heavy indie movies: think The Sure Thing, Before Sunrise, Fruitvale Station, to name a few. So, it gives me great pleasure to now live so close to the annual Woodstock Film Festival — one of the most community-integrated and creativity-driven film festivals in the world, and a huge supporter of emerging and established independent filmmakers (as embodied by their tagline, “fiercely independent.”)
Earlier this year, Woodstock Film Festival kicked off its inaugural Filmmakers Residency in collaboration with White Feather Farm Foundation. The Residency supports filmmakers of diverse and underrepresented backgrounds who are in the midst of developing either full-length narrative or documentary films, each addressing social justice themes (specifically, racism, food insecurity and immigration.)
The Residency ran through May this year and will be back annually, and I was lucky enough to speak to Alex Smith, the Artistic Director of the program. Alex is a seasoned film writer and director who regularly partners with his twin brother to create movies such as The Slaughter Rule starring a young Ryan Gosling, and Walking Out starring Bill Pullman, and has worked with many of the living legends of modern filmmaking, including Lars Von Trier, Brian De Palma, and Terrence Malick. Originally from Montana — a landscape that looms large in his work — Alex has lived in Woodstock for the last five years and, when we spoke, he reflected on the “second wave ‘Back to the Land’ movement” we might be experiencing in recent times, drawing artists to the countryside: “With the dovetailing crises of COVID and climate change there is a movement to the pastoral… [and] there might be more of an appetite for more rural stories.”
This year, the Residency supported four inspiring Residents: Eunice Lau, Set Hernandez Rongkilyo, Brooke Pepion Swaney and Maba Ba — offering mentorship from the likes of renowned director Mira Nair, inspiring talks from locally-based filmmakers, and even a chance to regularly feed the chickens on the farm.
Now the Residency is over for the year, and — as Alex and the Residents make their way back out into everyday life — I was curious to hear from them about the influence that this unique experience in the Hudson Valley has had on them and their work. This week’s edition features more from my conversation with Alex and next week we’ll hear from the Residents themselves.
Alex Smith, directing Josh Wiggins in ‘Walking Out’
Alex, the Residency is such a wonderful initiative to nurture emerging talent. Why did you want to be part of it and what is your role?
I have been lucky enough to be a Fellow/Resident at several deeply inspiring, nurturing havens — including The Sundance Lab and The Rauschenberg Residency — and they’ve been instrumental to my career and mindset as a filmmaker. So, when Meira (Executive Director of WFF) asked me to help steer the inaugural ship, I jumped at the opportunity to try to build a month-long incubator — one that I’d love to be a resident of; one that I dearly hope continues to happen and evolve.
I saw my role as Artistic Director as sort of a mother hen — and I did my best to find out what the Residents hoped to get out of their month-long stay, and then to try to inculcate it. I wanted to identify their weak/blindspots and strengthen them; to get them out of their comfort zones; to get them familiar with some ür approaches to narrative structure; and to encourage collaboration/unification of creative vision, both of which are, to me, the true gold of filmmaking. To do this, I leaned on the wisdom and energy of Artistic Directors who’ve helped me in the past. And asked some of my favorite filmmakers to share their experiences with Residents.
Some Residents are working on documentaries and some on narrative features. You talk about the move in recent years towards docs becoming more creative and features becoming more realistic. Why do you think that might be?
Good question. The Venn Diagram overlap of ‘true story’ and ‘narrative’ just seems to be fertile ground for good stories well told. We hunger for stories as maps of survival — so the ‘truer’ they are, the more resonant & impactful they can be to our everyday life — but we also hunger for cinematic wonder and magic, so the techniques of narrative film — both in terms of craft and story-structure — seem to adapt readily to more documentary subjects. To me, it’s all smoke and mirrors, all manipulation of sound and image. As Chekhov puts it, “Nobody knows the real truth.”
Alex Smith, directing Alex Escarcega and Yancey Hawley in ‘Winter in the Blood’
What are you most excited to see come from the Residency as it grows, and how important is it to the evolution of the Woodstock Film Festival?
As it grows, I’d love for the Residency to become even more of a beacon for diverse filmmakers intent on telling stories of social justice, community and inclusion. I look forward to seeing the fruits of our labor — i.e., our Residents’ film projects becoming films readily available to watch. I try not to burden the dream of the Residency with too many expectations, but I am curious to see what happens next!
You and your wife spent some time living in the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony when you first moved to upstate NY. Tell me a little bit about that unique experience.
Well, to be completely honest, it was a mixed-bag. The place itself has an amazing energy and fascinating history, but I feel it has recently (or maybe always been?) become very confused and toxic about what it is and wants to be.
Got it. Back to your craft: you have made several films set in your native Montana and landscape features heavily in your work. How has living in the Hudson Valley impacted your recent projects?
Oh, I have become quite smitten with the deciduous forests, bluestone, choice fungi and the capillary system of rivers, creeks and kills up here. These woods have inspired at least two television series ideas (one about a haunted Arts Colony…) and I’m intent on shooting something in the Catskills at some point soon. I found walking in the woods of Hudson Valley to be a great form of tapping into my sub/un/conciousness. It’s a fertile place for the sensuous, for forest— and story — bathing.
Thank you Alex. I am so thrilled this Residency will be bringing more storytellers to the Woodstock each year, and I’m excited to see what comes of your ghost story...
“Woodstock stands for peace and love and it still rings true today and I can feel it everywhere,” says Eunice Lau. Next week we will hear more from Eunice and the other Residents about the stories they are bringing to life, and what the Residency and Woodstock’s unique energy has meant to them and their work: from early morning coffee rituals in nature, to conversations with filmmaking gurus that made them rethink their whole movie.
Woodstock Film Festival runs events throughout the year. Catch their next screening feature at Greenville Drive-In on July 8th: ‘Swan Song’ — Todd Stephens’ new comedic take on old age starring Udo Kier, supported by Jennifer Coolidge and others.