Ruth Platt co-created a theater company which was nominated twice for Time Out Critics Choice runs. Her short film featuring Maxine Peake, “The Heart Fails Without Warning.” was selected for Aesthetica, Palm Springs International Festival, London Short Film Festival, Raindance, and Underwire. She made her feature debut with “The Lesson,” an expressionist horror which premiered at FrightFest and Slamdance.
“The Black Forest” will premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 27.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
RP: Two families go on holiday to the Black Forest together. Whilst the children lose themselves in the freedom of the summer, small secrets start to unravel among the four adults, sparking conflict.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
RP: There is a bit of personal experience informing the film! There probably usually is. But it is a strange mix of fiction and truth.
The children’s friendships in the film are real friendships, though in fictional settings — I wanted to observe those friendships without interfering too much, as they are, in turn, riotous and sweet interactions.
The friendships between the four adults are also informed by personal experience, but again, through the lens of fiction. I thought it would be interesting to address the duties and pressures of being parents when you are still trying to parent yourself or your partner, the practical pressures of trying to provide for your family, and trying to do the right thing but sometimes getting lost within the structure of a one-week time frame, on holiday.
I hope “The Black Forest” is a tender, affectionate portrayal of people’s lives, one which tries to see different points of view. No one is entirely good or bad. And hopefully it is quite funny at times.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
RP: Their own relationships, perhaps trying to understand their partner from a different point of view. And just to bring people back to the sense of what is important, what they care about in their own lives, and the small details of ordinary life — and in the people that we love — that make it worth living.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
RP: Money and time! Always! I have only ever made very micro-budget films up to this point, though hopefully things might be different next time around. It would be amazing just to be able to focus as a director and not have to do a million other things at the same time. Although I do love working with a very small crew — I had a lovely, tiny crew and amazing actors that worked so hard and we were all on the same page. That can actually work to free you up in terms of prep time and just finding creative solutions wherever you can to the time and money problem.
When we shot the big argument scene in the park, we literally had only one take of each shot. We did the whole thing in about an hour. It is roughly shot, but I think the urgency of the whole thing creates this energy that really works.
So often we only had one take, but we were all carried through on this sense of “now or never.” And it worked, but I would love to see what it feels like on the other side — i.e. on a low budget film as opposed to a micro one!
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
RP: It was self-funded from a small amount of money that came back from my first micro-budget film which got distribution — £25k (about $31.7k USD). I finished the film over two years when I could afford to spend bits and pieces of cash on it, around another £5k in total (about $6.4k USD).
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
RP: I always loved films. They made me feel alive. I had a very over-active imagination as a child and vivid dreams, and nightmares — cinematic, even. I constantly made up stories in my head after lights out, and wrote plays as a child and teenager and put them on, but was frustrated by the lack of naturalism I could achieve in the church hall. Ha!
I read English at university because I adored stories, and then I thought I wanted to be an actor, and trained as an actor, which I loved, but didn’t have a bank of mum and dad to fall back on so left in my second year of training. I did work as an actor, but felt frustrated by the lack of agency and the quality of some of the work I had to do as a jobbing actor. I also didn’t eat very much and got very thin. I found the pressure to be physically perfect impossible, obviously, and quite overwhelming.
I realized after a few years I was much happier behind the camera, and telling the stories. I love working with actors though, on the truth of each thought, each beat of subtext. That makes me happy.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
RP: I wish my mum had given me the advice the brilliant Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s mum gave to her, which was apparently, “Darling, you can be whatever you want to be, as long as you’re outrageous.” My mum was more like, “Get a proper job. Please don’t be a musician or actor because you’ll be poor and miserable, and do go to university so you’ll have a qualification to fall back on.”
But then my mum was this brilliant, passionate musician who had given it all up to be a socialist vicar’s wife and mother. I’ve already passed on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s mum’s advice to my own daughter, who is 11.
I think the best piece of advice I received was from my acting teacher at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] shortly before I left. She sat in front of me at a feedback session, after what I thought was a brilliant performance, looked at me straight in the eye and said, “You were good, yes, but you could have been brilliant if you had worked harder. You need to get your arse in gear.” She was right.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
RP: Keep making films. Make shorts and features for as much as you can safely put together. Go to festivals if you can afford to and watch as many films as you can. Find your voice.
If you want kids, find someone who can share the parenting load with you equally, and try to work out a setup where you can both juggle work and parenting in equal measures. I’m still not quite sure how that can be done without a trust fund or something, but you never know!
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
RP: I find that such a hard question to answer as there’s such a huge and diverse range of films to choose from. The first women filmmakers that I was aware of when I was younger were Claire Denis, Jane Campion, and Kathryn Bigelow.
I remember just being totally blown away by Denis’ “Beau Travail.” Something about Denis is her incredible eye and technical brilliance, whilst standing back, her own voice almost made opaque, allowing her characters to flesh out the screen with a rawness and immediacy.
More recently, Julia Ducournau’s “Raw,” which has this brilliant, provocative black humor and stylistic edge to it, and for very different reasons, “Summer 1993,” by Carla Simón, which had these beautifully understated performances. Everyone talks about the kids, who were wonderful, but I also adored the adults.
W&H: It’s been over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
RP: Well, having worked as an actress, I’ve got my fair share of stories and personal experiences. Some quite painful. I think the industry is waking up, but I am amazed it has taken so long. There is certainly now, really quite suddenly, it seems, a lot more awareness and more of a push to enable and empower women as creatives in film, not just writers and directors, but as film composers, directors of photography, and editors.
There is a long way to go. And the more women there are in powerful positions with their voices and stories being heard and told, the less likely women will be put in positions where they are exploited, manipulated, or just ignored. I think, in general, the industry is also waking up to the need for more diversity in the people telling stories through film, which can only be a good thing.
