Katherine Gorringe is a documentary director and editor whose work has been featured at numerous festivals including SXSW, CPH:DOX, and Lunafest. Her most recent editing work includes the Emmy-nominated Netflix Original “Saving Capitalism,” which follows former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. “Red Heaven” is her feature documentary directorial debut.

“Red Heaven” marks Lauren DeFilippo’s feature-length directorial debut. She is currently in production on two upcoming feature documentaries: “Free Money,” about the world’s largest universal basic income experiment, and “Ailey,” about visionary dance choreographer Alvin Ailey.

“Red Heaven” is screening at the 2020 DOC NYC film festival, which is taking place online from November 11-19.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

LD&KG: “Red Heaven” tells the story of six people who lived for an entire year on [a simulation of] Mars in a NASA experiment that studies what happens to humans when they are isolated from Earth. The film was shot by the subjects themselves – we gave them cameras when they entered their small geodesic dome and directed remotely – so it is a vivid and intimate experience that explores our most fundamental needs as human beings.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

LD&KG: We were coming out of graduate school at Stanford – studying documentary film – in the heart of Silicon Valley at a time when space exploration and traveling to Mars had reemerged in the public consciousness. It was also the moment when climate change was becoming a more prominent threat to the future of humanity. We wanted to interrogate this new fascination with sending humans to Mars. What does this dream of living on Mars say about our culture, about human beings?

We had seen a lot of films that either looked at the technical challenges of getting humans to Mars, or simply glorified the idea. We were interested in the complex, human side of the story — the intensity of living in a place that is totally inhospitable to us as a species all the while being completely isolated from everything you’ve ever known. We felt that was the most fascinating part, yet it was being repeatedly overlooked in the race to get to Mars.

We started to research possible stories that spoke to this question and we quickly learned about the Hawai’i Space Exploration Analogue and Simulation [HI-SEAS], where six people would soon be entering a small dome to live isolated from the rest of the world for an entire year as if they were on Mars. We immediately knew this was our story.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

LD&KG: We hope that this film inspires audiences to look at their own fundamental needs as human beings, what they can and can’t live without, and that they come away with a question about why humans strive to explore and expand our boundaries. And when the credits come up, we hope everyone is infused with a love for Earth in all its natural glory that we so often take for granted.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

LD&KG: In a way, this film is a casting nightmare for a documentary. You need drama to make a film, and the people chosen for mock and real space missions are by definition low drama – because that’s what you need to survive this stressful lifestyle. So we found ourselves trying to tell a story about the least dramatic people you can find. But as we got to know these six wonderful people, we realized that they contained a multitude of experience, emotion, and thoughtful reflection.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

LD&KG: When we first started, we developed and produced the first few shoots out of pocket and with a small grant from the Mountainfilm documentary festival. We launched a Kickstarter campaign while the crew was coming out of the dome where we raised a more significant piece of our budget. It ended up being a very stressful month to produce this major shoot while running a Kickstarter, but it really worked well for us because our film became part of the story of the HI-SEAS mission that was being well covered in the media.

Later we received a grant through the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and investment from Seeker and Sandbox Films, all of which have been amazingly supportive partners for us.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

LD: I became a filmmaker because I was starting to enter the world of academia and quickly realized that I didn’t want to be writing about other people’s work — I wanted to create my own work. There’s something irresistible about how filmmaking utilizes every part of your brain. I love the creative mental space of directing and editing and the hustle of producing.

KG: I wanted to be a historian but I also had a background in music. Documentary filmmaking just came into my life as a marriage of those two passions. It was the way that I could be creative while deeply engaging with the world and the important issues we’re facing.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

LD&KG: We really found this film in the edit. Our original idea was to incorporate outside interviews and archival footage that explored ideas about Mars exploration and human nature. The more we edited, however, the more we realized we had to focus in on the story of these six people in the dome and that their intimate experience spoke to everything we wanted the film to speak to. At one point in the edit, we got some very good advice from an experienced editor who told us the best thing we could do was to impose limitations on ourselves. So we decided to do an experiment: restrict ourselves to only working with the footage that the crew had shot themselves – no outside shots or interviews – and that’s when we really started to discover the film.

We pitched the film at a pitch forum a few years ago that was all in all a really great experience. But one of the jury members told us that his audience was not interested in human stories and that we should focus less on humans and more on robots.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

LD&KG: Walk into every room like you belong there. Fight the urge to defer to the man in the room. Start thinking about failure and rejection as stepping-stones along the way to reaching your goal.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

LD&KG: We are huge fans of “We Live in Public” by the inimitable Ondi Timoner. It’s been a big inspiration for our film.

We also want to give a shout-out to Chantal Akerman.

W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

LD&KG: We are definitely noticing more men talking about these issues and being cognizant of the way women are treated and perceived – both in conversations and meetings as much as in the industry as a whole. We’ve also seen a more concerted effort by female directors to hire female crew, especially during production.