Alicia Slimmer has worked on many independent films as an actor, assistant director, set dresser, and producer. “Creedmoria” is her debut feature film. It took home the juried prize of Best Narrative Feature Film Comedy at Cinequest Film Festival. Slimmer’s previous short film, “My First Car,” premiered at Dances with Films Festival in LA and won Best Comedy at the 24th Annual New School Invitational Film Show. In 2015, Alicia joined two prestigious groups of women filmmakers: NYWIFT and Film Fatales.
“Creedmoria’s” SoCal Premiere will take place June 3rd at TCL Chinese 6 Theaters in Hollywood.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
AS: “Creedmoria” is a feel-good movie about an optimistic teenager, Candy Cahill, played by Stef Dawson of “The Hunger Games.” Candy beats the odds of living a life expected of her in Queens, NY in the ’80s by breaking out, on a city bus, toward a better life — complete with a big, fantastical, music-building, goose-bump-making Hollywood ending.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
AS: The story is semi-autobiographical. I wrote it while pregnant and contemplating what kind of mother I would be. The mother-daughter storyline is a huge part of this movie. Candy grows up in the shadow of her domineering mother, Angela. The archetypal relationship they have, two halves of a whole, and the need for one to exert her independence were all ideas flooding me at the time.
The idea of family being the biggest institution in one’s life and how some of us need to break out of that institution has been a theme that’s consumed me since I left home at a young age.
I was a product of the martini-set parents, post “Leave it to Beaver” but way before helicopter parenting became the norm. Children were to be seen and not heard. Parents only saw their kids when they called them in to dinner. I learned how to make Manhattans at the age of nine.
We all lived in my mother’s house: it was her domain. It took me a long while to form my own identity, away from her, Queens, and everything I knew that defined me up until that point.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
AS: Great question. I want them to feel elated — happy that the underdog made it. I want them to feel inspired, and that anything is possible. [Hopefully they are] [t]hrilled to watch the heroine ride off into the sunset because she wanted to find a better life somewhere, and to leave the toxic world she grew up in behind. I want the audience to feel expansive with hope.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
AS: Working with a lousy actor, who in this case was a dog. You get what you pay for and I decided to take a chance on a dog with little experience in front of the camera because he came cheaper than the professional dogs. But his lack of performance capabilities soon had my whole set on edge. It never looked like we would get the shot. If we wanted the dog to growl and look menacing, he’d fall asleep. If we wanted him to sit and stay, he’d go off exploring.
I became the set zen master at keeping the peace and trying to keep the dog wrangler at ease, which is not an easy thing to do when the AD is yelling about how we need to move it along and the dog just nipped the lead. The editing room improved Cuddles’ performance five million percent! If the audience is glad to see the dog reach his demise, in which he does in one of the darkest comedic moments of the movie, then I’ve done my job.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
AS: I begged, borrowed, and almost stole to get this movie made. Most of it is self-financed with the help of credit cards and the other portion was crowdfunding on Indiegogo. The challenge for me was setting the movie in the late ’70s /early ’80s, with a house and vehicles that created the era. Locations and renting cars are expensive, especially muscle cars which are off the charts. So instead of hiring a location scout and a picture car outfit, I cut out the middle-man and did it myself. Most of the period vehicles and muscle cars, circa ’60s & ’70s, came from attending car meet-ups in Long Island.
I would drive out to Bayshore with Roxanne Day, my foxy casting director, to hand out postcards from my last movie, which featured a sexy GTO and heroine. We’d schmooze the dudes with their cars by telling them we’d make their cars a star. And it worked. Great guys would show up at all hours of the morning just so we could use it in the funeral scene or have their Gremlin parked at the church.
And speaking of funerals, the day we were shooting the funeral procession, I called the funeral parlor that buried my dad 20-plus years ago to ask what the hearse driver was doing for lunch. Tommy, the driver showed up at one o’clock in the afternoon and I paid him a couple bucks to lead the cars down the road for a few takes.
The film was a labor of love for so many people involved. The interior of the house belongs to one of my co-producer’s parents in Sheepshead Bay, and the exterior belongs to my sister’s in-laws in Queens. I made the meatloaf, deviled eggs, and prepared all of the edible props before shooting. When you add it all up, I’m sure I saved $100,000 at the end of production by finding creative ways to do it ourselves. And being charming doesn’t hurt either!
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
AS: The best advice came from a Buddhist teacher who taught me to practice non-attachment. Things will always go wrong on set — the shit always hits the fan. The day we shot our drag race, the brakes went on the Tempest. If I was attached to the outcome I would’ve been distraught. In fact, the owner of the car was so upset I had to talk him off the ledge. He hated me not getting the shot. Not being attached to outcomes saved me during the shoot, the way it saves me day-to-day. It allows for miracles to happen. Turns out I had a flatbed truck standing by that day. We switched gears, used the flatbed to haul the car around Queens and shot all the exterior day-driving scenes we needed.
The worst advice was from everyone who told me not to use pop music, especially from the ’70s and ’80s, because of the price tag. I was a small, nobody filmmaker with a microbudget and would be laughed at if I tried to put The Cure or a Cream song in my film.
So, I tried for half a year, in post-production, to retrofit songs from today to music of that time period. I considered using only score and paying a composer for original music. But none of it worked. Something felt terribly wrong. I’ve had the same Creedmoria playlist in my head since 2004. Certain songs wrote certain scenes. “Wishing” by Flock of Seagulls wrote the ending.
“Boy” by Book of Love wrote one of the Act changes. “Can’t You See,” one of the greatest rock songs of all-time, by the Marshall Tucker band, was a song I wanted to highlight the domineering mother, Angela, and play off what most people thought the traditional lyrics to mean: “Can’t you see, what that woman Lord, is doing to me.”
My husband and I just finished paying off our credit card debt due from the movie when he said, “Fuck it. Have the soundtrack you want. We’ll borrow the money if we have to.” And so I stepped into the role of Music Supervisor, found a badass licensing woman to handle the fees/licenses, and I created my dream soundtrack. The music is fully licensed for my film festival run.
At the end of the day, I made the movie I wanted to make and want people to see — not the version of the movie I could afford to make. And if it never gets seen beyond the festivals, so be it. There’s nothing I’d do different if I had the chance or the money — except have Aerosmith agree to let me use “Back in the Saddle Again.”
W&H: What is the one thing you want to impart to other female directors?
AS: I say this is the best time to be a female filmmaker because there is so much attention on gender bias and the lack of female directors. When the pendulum swings the other way, Hollywood will come knocking. So I say, go out there and make your movie and tell your stories — there will be a need for your voice in the future.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
AS: Jane Campion’s “The Piano” is the first movie that made me want to make movies. That and “An Angel at My Table.” The expanse of blue ocean in her shots and the color of the sky — alongside with Michael Nyman’s score — just rocked me to the core. To be able to tell a heart-wrenching story so vividly and so memorably was a very high bar to aspire to.
Julie Taymor’s “Titus” comes in close second. She also tells a brutal story with moments of utter beauty, imagery, and soundtrack that has stayed with me since I first saw it downtown. But I imagine, as a director, I’m more akin to one of my other favorite female directors, Nancy Meyers, because her comedies are a language I speak and her locations are eye-porn and a feast for the senses.
