Mattie Do is Laos’ first, and only, female filmmaker. Her feature debut, “Chanthaly,” was the ninth feature film produced in the country since the 1975 revolution, the first Lao feature with a female protagonist, and the first feature to be directed by a woman. “Chanthaly” premiered at Fantastic Fest, becoming the first Lao film to screen outside of Southeast Asia. Do’s second feature, “Dearest Sister,” screened at multiple fests, including BFI’s London Film Festival and the Singapore International Film Festival, and was later selected as Laos’ first official submission to the Academy Awards. Alongside Laos’ Ministry of Culture, Do has helped create the infrastructure necessary to introduce foreign co-productions, including a framework for managing the country’s rigid censorship.
“The Long Walk” will premiere at the 2019 Venice Film Festival on September 4.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
MD: “The Long Walk” is an unconventional time-travel thriller set in a forgotten rural village in Laos, about the ethos of a man, plagued by regret and loneliness, and his downward spiral into becoming a serial killer. He also has a very complicit ghostly friend.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
MD: This story was extremely personal for me on a lot of different levels. When I was filming my second feature, “Dearest Sister,” I recall being out in a rural village just on the outskirts of Vientiane, and filming in a house that was essentially a wooden hut down a dirt road. It was incredible to me that in 2015, with all of our advancements in the city of Vientiane, that a place like this could still exist only 30 minutes away, and I found it to be terribly ironic. It made me wonder what these areas would be like in 50 or 60 years.
Also, years ago when I lost my mother and eventually my whippet-dog Mango, I constantly pondered over what could have been done differently, if outcomes could have been changed for both of them.
I knew that for my mother, death was inevitable due to her terminal condition, but it felt so unfair and out of our control when she passed. Later, I was put into the horrible circumstance of having to decide whether my Mango needed to be euthanized or not; needless to say it was a traumatic experience for my husband and I.
These events and that trauma bled into the creation of “The Long Walk,” thus I started developing the idea of this “near-fi” futuristic thriller, set out in the middle of the countryside where the local population often gets forgotten, and where regret and bad decision-making spiral towards a dark future.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
MD: I want people to think about how short life is, and wonder what their decision-making process would be in a situation where they could possibly make changes or influence their own outcome.
I want people to know that life is short and that we don’t get redos, but that as life moves on, we have to take solace in how our future becomes firmly cemented as a part of our overall person.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
MD: My god, there were so many challenges in making this film!
Our film nearly fell apart right away because one of my key creatives didn’t take me seriously. I’m not sure if it was because I am a woman, or because I’m really an unconventional filmmaker. I have no formal film-training background, so I don’t speak in a technical way. I talk about film and framing on a purely physical and emotional level, even describing camera movements as if they were characters or emotional motivation, but I am extremely decisive. When I could not get what I needed and was actively demeaned on set in front of my crew, my producer — also a woman — hit the reset button.
No one thought we could restart the film, having lost all our equipment, and a good 25 percent of our team — but we did. She recruited new crew members that respected my vision, flew them to Asia, and even though we lost almost two or three weeks, we were back up and shooting again within three days of our new team touching Lao soil.
I have this reputation of [getting things done] through blood, sweat, and tears, hell or high water. I was determined to not ask for additional financing, so we had to completely rethink our budget, and certainly there were days we nearly starved on set, but thank god for the nature of Lao culture and people. We had local caterers that delivered food to us and fed us every meal, no questions asked. Even our crew’s accommodation allowed the entire film crew to take over their facility and also pay as soon as we were able to resume funding.
Quite frankly, a hard reset is every filmmaker’s nightmare, but my amazing team and crew came out even stronger than before. I am incredibly grateful to my core team for their faith in me, and their resilience. It truly was through the support of my team and the Lao community that we got through that rough patch.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
MD: Our film was privately funded through Aurora Media after participating in various project markets like SAFF (Southeast Asian Film Financing), Udine’s Far East Film Festival’s Focus Asia, and through Macao and Frontieres’ Crouching Tigers project market.
We received a grant though Switzerland’s Vision Sud Est fund, which was incredible because this is a very non-traditional film, and we had a small grant through the Luang Prabang Filmmakers Fund.
Also, Aurora struck a partnership with sales company 108 Media to bring the other part of the funding in.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
MD: I wasn’t really ever inspired to become a filmmaker — it just sort of happened. I consider it a very lucky accident. I wished I could be a ballet dancer, but honestly, I don’t have the talent or physique for that.
When I somehow made my first feature, I didn’t know anything about classic or famous independent films, I had no idea who most directors or actors were, andI didn’t know what a film festival was — I just made a film and used my hardcore ballet background to get through it.
If anything, I treat film similarly to how I would treat being a ballet dancer if I had the ability.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
MD: I’m really lucky that being out in the middle of nowhere, I’m rather quarantined from the haze of bad advice or poseur mentality. There’s not a ton of bad advice I can get in an environment where there are only four to six active film directors.
I immediately found mentors that have guided me in the right direction from day one, and I know that’s atypical, but through my producer Annick Mahnert, and my main mentor, Todd Brown, who inadvertently discovered me, I’ve constantly been given amazing advice.
The best advice they’ve given me was to make two budgets for all my films. The “Ideal” budget would cover all of our basic needs and costs in a comfortable way and allow us to execute things well. The “OMFG” budget is the bare minimum we can eke by with without dying and still somehow completing the film — perhaps not at the quality level we would like.
I guess maybe the worst advice I’ve seen — but haven’t had received — was just that there’s a certain way of “being” or acting that makes you seem like a filmmaker, and that’s that douchey-finger-guns, too-cool-for-school, slick attitude that people think equals filmmaker. That is such a wrong approach towards achieving anything in any field; I really caution new filmmakers to not behave that way and just be themselves.
This is a line of work where people want to experience unique stories, and if you’re trying to emulate some kind of cookie-cutter appearance or mentality, that doesn’t exactly set you apart as unique or even someone anyone would want to work with.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
MD: Believe in your vision, but vet it through your team and key collaborators. We need to be able to know what we want, but also realize the boundaries of when we are wrong and should adjust accordingly.
Don’t back down. As women — especially women of color — we have to fight doubly if not triply hard to launch one of our projects, so don’t give up and be aware that you’re going into a fight where you’re going to get punched again and again. Be ready for it.
Also, be aware of your own shortcomings and be prepared to really be self-critical and examine your own work/project — sometimes it isn’t because you’re a woman that things aren’t working, but because you need to take a hard look and reassess the value and quality of what it is you are trying to create. This is an attribute I learned from my dance training and that I think anyone in any career should consider.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
MD: I love “Revenge” by Coralie Fargeat. It’s direct, brutal, to the point, and visually stunning. I can’t express enough how much I love this film.
W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
MD: I notice that there are more companies and festivals that are aware of the lack of female-helmed films and female stories, and that has begun to open doors for female filmmakers to be noticed. I’m the only woman in my country directing narrative feature fiction, so I’ve always been alone in that regard, but then again, because there are so few of us, one could say that 25 percent of filmmakers in my country are female, so that’s pretty hilarious and awesome, too.
