Laura E. Davis is a writer, director, and story consultant. Her previous credits include the award-winning feature “Thin Air,” a short film starring Sarita Choudhury (“Homeland”), and a documentary on HIV/AIDS activism in Paris, which premiered at San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival. She teaches screenwriting and film directing at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala.
Jessica Kaye is a writer, director, and actor. Her acting credits include “All God’s Creatures,” “Condition” and “One Life to Live.” Her documentary, “Fabian Debora, A Life for Art,:screened at numerous festivals and won several awards including Best Documentary Short at Cinequest. Her other directing credits include “‘Til Death” and “Shortage.”
“Inheritance” will premiere at the 2017 SXSW Film Festival on March 11.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
LED&JK: “Inheritance” is a dark and stormy drama about a woman fighting for intimacy in the present while being challenged to face the reality of her past.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
LED&JK: This story was inspired by the awe-inspiring beauty of Belize, the prospect of intense collaboration, and our personal histories. While the plot is not directly inspired by our lives, the themes of the film definitely are. We wanted to explore how trauma, if unacknowledged, might affect someone as an adult.
We also wanted to create a complex female protagonist, which we knew would be brought to life by Jessica, who, in addition to co-writing and co-directing “Inheritance,” starred in it.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
LED&JK: We would rather have them feeling than thinking at the end of the film. We hope they leave the theater with a sense of the complexities of our own families and how our past shapes us — how crucial it is to face the truth of our pasts, especially the painful truths.
Once we acknowledge our whole selves, we can find release and the intimacy we deeply need.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
LED&JK: Funding! Raising money for an independent film — in which both filmmakers are hoping to get a start — is a massively intimidating feat.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
LED&JK: The funding is a combination of investments and nonprofit contributions from friends, family, and friends of friends. We pooled together whatever donated services we could, including donated locations and frequent flier miles to get our crew home. We wrote the script for locations we knew we had access to.
We are incredibly grateful to everyone who invested or donated to make this project happen!
W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at SXSW?
LED&JK: We could not be more excited to premiere at SXSW, which has a track record of showing innovative films and of being a destination for film lovers. SXSW has launched many careers and helped put countless filmmakers on the map so they could go out and make more work.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
LED&JK: Best advice: You have to greenlight your own work. No one is going to do it for you.
Worst advice: We don’t feel we’ve received bad advice, as most advice is useful in some way! But, any advice to write or create focusing explicitly on the audience has not led us down productive paths. Of course, the audience is hugely important — the whole goal is to communicate with an audience in the end — but it shouldn’t be to the exclusion of your own voice or instincts.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
LED&JK: See above! Greenlight your own projects if you can. Write something you know you have the possibility of making.
Create or tap into a community of female directors who can support you. Communities created by Film Fatales or Women in Film are invaluable.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
LED&JK: It’s hard to pick a single film, but one we both love is “Fish Tank” by Andrea Arnold. It is raw, courageous, unexpected. The performances have depth and nuance. The character of Mia is so real and so beautifully played by Katie Jarvis. There is a unique and subtle poeticism within the gritty filmmaking style that creates a beautiful and complex tension. And the dancing scenes take your breath away.
W&H: There have been significant conversations over the last couple of years about increasing the amount of opportunities for women directors yet the numbers have not increased. Are you optimistic about the possibilities for change? Share any thoughts you might have on this topic.
LED&JK: We are optimistic that the conversation is at least being taken more seriously. The statistics are abysmal, and the role of implicit bias can’t be overstated. Increasing awareness is critical.
The next steps will be when people in positions of power take decisive steps and establish explicit standards — like Ryan Murphy’s Half Foundation or ReFrame, launched by the Sundance Initiative and Women in Film. Without this support, real opportunities will not open up and women will be consigned to the lower budget films. It’s not only a question of creating opportunities for women to make films, but for those films to get distribution.
But, yes, did we say we were optimistic…? And also proud to be opening the way, we hope, for more women to make films and to have them seen.
