Paula Eiselt is an independent filmmaker. She is currently a POV/Wyncote Filmmaker Fellow and was a 2017 Sundance Creative Producing Summit Fellow and a 2016 IFP Lab fellow. “93Queen” is her feature directorial debut.
“93Queen” will premiere at the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival on April 29.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
PE: With unprecedented — and insider — access, “93Queen” follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are smashing the patriarchy in their community by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City.
At its core, “93Queen” is about change from within. Change — especially feminism!— can take shape in many different ways; it doesn’t look the same in every community. “93Queen” is a unique and intellectually honest portrayal of what women’s empowerment looks like in the Hasidic world.
It is a universal story in a very particular setting about what happens when women feel empowered to make progress in their own communities, on their own terms, in order to move those communities forward.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
PE: Over five years ago, I was perusing a Yiddish website and came across a photo featuring Hasidic women in lab coats. I read in the accompanying description about Ruchie Freier, a Hasidic woman who was leading her fellow Hasidic women from Brooklyn in creating America’s first all-female volunteer EMT corps. They were called Ezras Nashim, or “women helping women.”
As an Orthodox Jewish woman myself, I immediately understood that the formation of Ezras Nashim would be a significant disruption to cultural norms in the gender-segregated Hasidic community. Another Hasidic ambulance corps called Hatzolah had already “claimed” EMS as a male-only space and wasn’t just opposing, but was actively working against these trailblazing women.
Until that moment, I had never heard of proud Hasidic women challenging the status quo of their own community and refusing to take no for an answer from the all-powerful patriarchy. Their courage and persistence in demanding progress from their own community — even in the face of fierce opposition — is why I made “93Queen.”
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
PE: I want people to consider — or rather re-consider — the many unexpected complexities and challenging narratives regarding progress, faith, leadership, and feminism within this film. My hope is that “93Queen” will intersect with the greater conversations we’re all having right now about change.
“93Queen” also explores a community that is severely stereotyped as monolithic and solely prohibitive, especially when it comes to women. Most of the film’s audiences will have had very little — if any — exposure to the Hasidic community from the inside. It’s important to me for people to see Hasidic humanity and diversity, and to feel and relate to these women — to see them as individuals within a larger framework of which they are working to grab hold.
Finally, I want viewers to feel challenged enough to wrestle with preconceived recipes for progress and notions of Hasidic women, preferably to the point of discomfort. Unraveling strong-held assumptions can be really painful and disconcerting, but sitting in that space is the only way to yield intellectual reconstruction.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
PE: The biggest challenge I encountered was actually filming in an environment where media is taboo. In many ways, the making of “93Queen” mirrors the radical formation of Ezras Nashim.
In Hasidic culture, secular media is seen as spiritually threatening and women shy away from any sort of public attention. In fact, Hasidic and Ultra-Orthodox publications do not print photos of any women at all. As an insider who understands the laws of modesty and agreed to follow them in the making of the film, I was granted unprecendented and exclusive acess to the David-and-Goliath story of Ezras Nashim.
Working within those constraints and sensitivities proved to be extremely challenging, especially since the doc is vérité based. However, in the end, those conditions allowed the authenticity and access to shine through every scene.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
PE: “93Queen” was made by the wondrous support of ITVS and the documentary community.
Our first public foray with “93Queen” was actually the 2015 Athena Film Festival, where we were selected to be a part of the festival’s work-in-progress panel.
The first three years of filming were quite lean. We had gotten a starter grant from the Hartley Film Foundation, but things really picked up in 2015 when we were selected for IFP Film Week, at which point we met with a slew of funders including ITVS. We applied to ITVS straight from there and were awarded funding, which was a complete game-changer.
Following our co-production with ITVS, we received funding from The Sundance Institute, with support from Open Society Foundations and Just Films | Ford Foundation; NYSCA; Fork Films; the Gucci Tribeca Doc Fund, with support from the Oath Foundation and Picture Motion; and the IDA Pare Lorentz Doc Fund.
We also got a whole lot of support from the entire staff at Women Make Movies as part of the org’s Production Assistance Program. I was also a 2016 IFP lab fellow as well as a 2017 Sundance Summit Creative Producing fellow — both labs allowed me to forge invaluable relationships with peers and within the industry.
Another critical moment for “93Queen” was the 2017 Hot Docs Pitch Forum, where we not only solidified relationships with foreign distributors, but also won the top first look Pitch Fund cash prize. This additional funding came while we were in the midst of post-production and was instrumental in helping us make it to the finish line.
W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at Hot Docs?
PE: Relief and joy that it’s finally over!
Seriously, though, premiering at one of the world’s most prestigious documentary film festivals alongside superb documentaries from around the globe is thrilling and extremely humbling.
The fact that we had such a fantastic and formative experience at last year’s Pitch Forum makes it all the more rewarding.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
PE: Best advice : Find fulfillment in the actual the process because the successes are so fleeting.
Worst advice : Make films for yourself. While we need to own our vision and be more passionate about our work than probably anything else in our life, films are made to be communal experiences. Other people’s opinions do matter — but yours has the most weight.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
PE: Trust your vision, be on the offense not defensive, and ask for help with confidence. Take creative risks and make mistakes like all the men around us to do. Don’t let oversights derail your process — fix them and move forward.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
PE: “Selma” by Ava DuVernay. Biopics and films depicting world-altering movements are almost always directed by men. The very fact that DuVernay, a woman of color, was given the reins to tell the story of Martin Luther King Jr. absolutely blew my mind with inspiration and hope.
And then I saw the actual film and my inspiration morphed into awe.
DuVernay’s directorial poetry — her camera, acting, and sound — is fierce, feminine and perfectly symmetrical, giving “Selma” an authenticity that I often feel is lacking in larger films. It’s trailblazing as artistic genius.
“Selma” and DuVernay have forever changed the film industry and embodies our goal for the work ahead.
W&H: Hollywood and the global film industry are in the midst of undergoing a major transformation. Many women — and some men — in the industry are speaking publicly about their experiences being assaulted and harassed. What are your thoughts on the #TimesUp movement and the push for equality in the film business?
PE: It’s obviously about time. I experienced the environment that breeds harassment and gender disparity in the film industry from the get-go in film school. As students, we would form our own crews for our film projects and whenever a male was directing the core crew was almost entirely male, with the exception of producers. There were just a couple of female DPs. It was clear and unquestioned that young men trusted each other more with their vision than they did women.
At one of my first internships at a major film production company in NYC, I was asked if I minded being added to a list of babysitters for the company CEO’s kids. I doubt any male names were on that list.
The push for equality is essential to thriving and surviving. We must aim for nothing less than the ideal.
