If only people had listened to her. She saw the warning signs while others kept repeatedly turning a blind eye, and now her only child is on the brink of committing an unspeakable act. For thirteen agonizing minutes, Julie (played by a shattering Bethany Anne Lind), races through traffic, frantically making calls that she hopes will bring her back in contact with her son. She also has to make sure she won’t get into an accident along the way.
This is the woman whose moment to moment experience we share in while watching Maia Scalia’s stunning, extraordinarily assured directorial debut, “His Mother.” It was edited by Scalia’s father, Pietro, a two-time Oscar-winner for “JFK” and “Black Hawk Down,” whose credits also include “Good Will Hunting,” “Gladiator,” “The Martian” and last year’s “Ferrari.” I first learned of the project thanks to an Instagram post made by its executive producer Eileen Kelly, who has used her platform to disassemble the stigmas that surround sexuality and mental health, most recently on her essential podcast, “Going Mental.”
“His Mother” will undoubtedly be a highlight at this year’s HollyShorts Film Festival when it screens this afternoon, and affirms its writer/director’s status as a filmmaker of enormous promise. Prior to the film’s premiere at the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival earlier this week, I had the privilege of speaking with Scalia via Zoom about her first foray into directing, her aspirations as an artist and the transformative nature of collaboration.
I have long been an admirer of your father’s work, and am curious to learn more about the career of your mother, Teresa Sparks, in the industry.
My parents met in film school. My mom was in grad school and my dad was an undergrad, so she was his TA. She has written amazing screenplays, and had a very Hollywood experience of selling pitches and writing for huge studios. Nothing ever got produced, but she had an impressive career before I was born and when I was a kid. She still writes to this day. Her thesis film from 1985, “Over the Summer,” is about a young girl who travels back to the Appalachian South, where my mom is actually from, and stays with her grandparents. The movie is really interesting in how it explores intergenerational themes of sexuality and repression, and it was produced by a woman named Buffy Queen, which is a name that has always stuck with me. Both of my parents introduced me to such amazing films when I was growing up, so there is no question that I am highly influenced by them.
How did you come to filmmaking on your own terms?
It’s funny, our parents were always telling my brother and me not to go into filmmaking. And yet, we both pursued careers in the industry because we grew up in a household with such an appreciation for film as well as theatre. My mom loves theatre, and had taken me to see amazing live performances in New York and the U.K. when I was a child. I grew up on the west side of LA, so I’m not blind to the fact that there is this sort of crazy pipeline that would make my parents reluctant to encourage our film careers. I studied acting in school because I wanted to somehow be involved in theatre, and ultimately realized that I was interested in stories as a whole rather than just one part of them.
For “His Mother,” I was drawing from a personal experience that left me with so many questions, I felt like I was putting a puzzle together in my head. The process of making this film allowed me to start exploring those questions, from writing and understanding all these different parts of the story, to having conversations with my actress, DP and editor—who, in this case, is my dad. Every step I’ve taken in making this film has helped me make sense of the questions I have in my own life, and I think that’s what has brought me to filmmaking.
Were there formative films or plays that left a particular impact on you?
Yeah, there are quite a few, though there are two that come to me immediately. When I was 17, my mom showed me the work of John Waters, and I was like, “Woah. People make films like this?” She had just taken me to a Cindy Sherman show, and when I watched John Waters’ transgressive movies, that was the moment where I understood that filmmaking was so much more expansive than the Hollywood blockbuster films that I grew up loving. It showed me that there are so many different ways to make a film, and that one need not play by the rules.
In terms of theatre, when I was a kid living in London, my mom would take me to plays every weekend. I remember seeing choreographer Matthew Bourne’s “Play Without Words,” in which he turned the 1963 film, “The Servant,” into a ballet. The way in which he used physical performance to show the passing of time blew my mind. I also love Ibsen plays. My mom and I were at the Broadway production of “An Enemy of the People” this past March when climate activists started protesting in the middle of the show. It was truly the best night of my life. I was just enthralled by watching everything unfold in the moment, as the crowd interacted with the protestors and actors. That’s why I love film too. The shared experience of watching a film with other people is impossible to replicate.
What inspired you to tell the story in “His Mother” from this specific perspective?
I personally am not interested in the “nature versus nurture” question of, “Was it the chicken or the egg?” Of course, we as a society are obsessed with that, but I think it is important to challenge ourselves to stop placing complex people into archetypal roles, especially in the national dramas that we’ve watched unfold time and time again. In order to understand our complicity in these events, it is important to see them through a different lens. I suppose I chose the mother’s perspective in a bid to sort of humanize a character that we prefer to misunderstand.
I was struck by how the mother sensed that something was wrong with her son, but her words were repeatedly dismissed by others.
Being heard and taken seriously are such huge things for us as human beings, and perhaps the importance of them for me came out in the movie that I made. It’s really intentional that the only person who listens to Julie is the last person who she calls, the 911 operator, who asks her toward the end of the film, “Do you have any other kids?” That came from an experience in my own life. When I was younger, my cousin passed away, who was an only child, and someone mentioned how horrifying it was that my aunt had no other kids, which is a weird thing to quantify in that way. But that always stuck with me, and I wanted to find a way for that character to show that she was listening.
Another reason why the film is from Julie’s perspective is because I was interested in the question of, “At what point do we deem someone no longer worthy of empathy, both for the person who commits violent crimes and their parents?” At a certain point, we tend to no longer see them as human. In a way, this film was an experiment to see if the audience—by having to live through thirteen minutes in real time with the mother—would begin to question how we judge people in grief. At what point are they no longer allowed to feel love for the person who committed these acts?
You can apply the theme of “being heard” to so many stories, such as those of the Olympic gymnasts who spoke out against their abuser, Larry Nassar, long before he was charged.
I’m glad to hear that line stuck with you because my hope is that it can give people a moment where they can start connecting their own experience or feelings to this person who is so different from them.
How did you find your amazing lead actress, Bethany Anne Lind, whose face anchors every frame of the film?
It took me a year and a half to find Bethany. I had reached out to actresses who I loved, sending cold emails to their agents, who got annoyed at hearing from me because they were like, “Why would we think about a short film?” Then I began talking to different casting directors. I worked with an amazing woman, Susanne Scheel, who said, “Let’s hold auditions so you can see people.” That process took a really long time, but when I saw Bethany’s tape, I instinctively knew that she was the person I wanted for the role. Something about her softness and vulnerability really spoke to me, and I found it so heartbreaking when I heard her reading the lines. She is a mother of two young children in real life, and I could feel that she was capable and willing to take this on. It was a really big ask because I made her actually drive inside of a car and talk on the phone with all of the actors, whom I had calling in. It was not easy and she did such an amazing job. I am so grateful and happy that I waited so long to find her.
You can sense the love she still has for her son.
Exactly. I was worried about that in the casting. When I went to acting school, we learned a lot about this idea of an adjusted point of view. If you are playing someone who is so different from you or whose choices you don’t agree with at all, how do you accept that? I knew that a lot of people would have a hard time adjusting their point of view for this role, but Bethany simply approached it with the real, nonjudgmental love that she has for her two children, and I was like, “That is all we need. The rest can just sort of unfold.”
I noticed that veteran actor D.W. Moffett, who plays her husband, Jason, starred in a film your father edited, “Stealing Beauty.”
D.W. Moffett is a family friend, and I adore him. I think I was six weeks old when my dad did “Stealing Beauty,” so he’s known my dad forever. He is an amazing actor and I love the quality of his voice, so I emailed him and asked if he would be willing to do this. He’s running the film program at Savannah College of Art and Design, so he is super into being a part of young filmmakers’ work. I also feel very lucky to have my parents as collaborators. My dad edited it, my mom was onset with me—she read the script and told me what was missing—and my brother worked on the set design. To have all of these people supporting me is so lucky, and to now be able to be a part of the work I grew up watching is very cool.
How has your own background in acting informed your approach to directing actors?
I went to NYU, and after that, I studied at a place called William Esper Studio where I had a teacher named Barbara Marchant, who has taught so many amazing actors. I had never felt that I had found a teacher who really understood me and I felt very supported by her. It was through watching her teach our acting classes that I learned how to direct actors. I am not into this idea of acting teachers having bullying personalities and feeling like they have to break you in order to get something out of you. I just don’t understand that mentality. Barbara chooses to really understand the person who is in front of her, and then uses that to help guide them. During filming, we used a lot of different things that I learned from Barbara about the Meisner Technique.
I have a lot of friends in New York who are directors at sort of the beginning of their careers, and many of them are starting to audit acting classes, which I think is great. It’s important for directors to see what it’s like and the embarrassment that you have to go through by putting yourself out there over and over. I think anyone would honestly benefit from it. When I’ve been asked if I was happy that I studied acting, my response is, “Honestly, yes.” I went to NYU when I was 18, and had this physical acting teacher who was a clown. The stuff that he made us do was so humiliating, but not in a bad way. It really made us not take ourselves seriously, and when you are 18, that was a lesson I could apply to every aspect of my life.
In a way, the editing in “His Mother” reminded me of “Black Hawk Down” in how it involves you in the many different urgent elements vying for the character’s attention as she is attempting to reach her goal.
It’s interesting that you draw that parallel to “Black Hawk Down.” I actually got to see it for the first time on the big screen at Locarno last summer, and I hope I am lucky enough to bring a film there one day. Whereas other film festivals I have attended feel exclusive, the people at Locarno were hanging out all over the town and it was very casual. I never thought about a parallel between that film and my film, but there is, in both cases, a sense of all of these moving parts. All of these different things are happening around these people, who need to stay focused on the one task that they need to do. There is the internal journey and then the external forces threatening to disrupt it.
I was with my dad every single day during the editing process, trying to learn as much as I could. It was really exciting, very fun and very difficult. I’d ask, “Can we try this?”, and he’d be like, “I don’t know. Can we?” I’d be like, “I don’t know, you’ve done this for 40 years,” and he’d respond, “Well, make your decision. You tell me why you think you want to do that.” We’re Italian, so we’d be arguing back and forth. When I’d say, “Never mind, let’s just move on,” he’d tell me, “You’re not fighting for what you believe in. If you believe in it, you need to tell me why.” A huge part of the process was him being tough on me so that I would understand the choices that I was trying to make. His expertise and understanding of rhythm in storytelling and performance and sound was such a gift and taught me a great deal.
The script itself is very short, but there is definitely a rhythm to it where you feel the ticking clock. There was actually an additional scene at the end, and when we had it in there, I looked at my dad and was like, “I don’t think we need that extra four minutes.” Editing, to me, is the most amazing art form, and people don’t understand how important it is to a story. When you watch someone like my dad work, it is like magic. You are watching a movie be created, and when we were editing, my dad said to me, “Look, it was one movie when you were writing, it was another movie when you were shooting, and now, it will be a different movie when we are editing. You have to let it speak to you. It is going to tell us what it wants and you can’t control it.” That was a huge learning moment and it was cool to let the film tell me how it should be.
Tell me about your approach to sound design in amplifying the tension and claustrophobia.
There is actually a lot of sound specified in the script. I find sound so interesting in movies, and I think Jonathan Glazer uses it in such an amazing way. When I watch his films, I think about how I could use sound in a similar way that is unexpected but also seamless. With “His Mother,” I am really trying to understand the idea of Julie being in a confined space without any outside noise, and the difference between the noise that is inside her head and the noise that surrounds her both inside and outside the car. They are all on different levels.
I was able to work with the percussionist Eli Keszler on the score, and I am a huge fan of his work. I was so shocked that he even said yes to work on my short film. We spoke a lot about the score for the movie “Heat” and how it feels like there are these two soundtracks that are interwoven. In our film, there are different layers of sound that represent her journey towards her son as he moves further away. It was amazing to work with Eli in building a whole universe in sound.
As in Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” there is a whole other story in “His Mother” that is conveyed so vividly through sound that we feel as if we are seeing it.
Yes, it’s almost like you’re seeing one story and then the sound is telling you another story. That is so cool to be able to use those layers, and I hope to incorporate that more into the films that I make.
How did Eileen Kelly become attached as an executive producer?
We met at sleep-away camp when we were 11, and stayed in touch ever since. We both moved to New York when we were 18, so we were finally living in the same city. I sent her the script for “His Mother” for her to read just as a friend and then, during preproduction, she called me and said, “I really believe in this story and I believe in you.” Eileen has a podcast about mental health, and is really interested in understanding how she can use her platform to bring conversations around that topic more to the forefront. She had never produced before, and I think she was excited to see how she could exercise that part of herself. What spoke to her about this story is the misunderstood character at its center and how we can allow these complicated stories to be less judged.
Working with my best friend was really rewarding and so much fun. There was so much trust and I am so grateful to have her on the team. It’s really nice to work with people who you are friends with because you feel like you can talk to them about anything. As an executive producer, she works so hard and wanted to get involved in all the different aspects of the whole process. Afterward, I told her, “The next thing I do, you have to be involved.” Eileen is so creative, and I would love to see her produce more films.
I discovered Eileen’s Instagram page in late 2018 through my interactions with a great actor I met at a festival, Thomasin McKenzie, who unrelatedly starred in the recent film, “Eileen.” I was so taken with the safe space Eileen created with her previous site, Killer and a Sweet Thang, and when she opened up about her experiences with religious repression and unearned shame regarding her sexuality, it inspired me to write an essay for her site about the repercussions of both issues in my own life. I ran it past my therapist before submitting because I had never shared something so personal, and the responses I received from various friends and strangers who read it were life-changing. It was mere weeks after the essay was published that I met the woman who became my wife—Rebecca, the publisher of this site—and the fact that I had purged those demons from my system thanks to Eileen’s site enabled me to fully embrace this new chapter in my life.
Those kinds of stories mean so much to Eileen because when she was growing up, this online internet culture was where she found her own safe space to explore and understand herself. When other people find that with the platforms she has created, it’s a really big deal for her.
I had the privilege last year of interviewing another of Eileen’s friends, Lily McInerny, about her brilliant performance in Jamie Dack’s “Palm Trees and Power Lines.” She told me that she shared Eileen’s passion in obliterating stigmas regarding sexuality and mental health. Is that one of your goals as an artist as well?
Absolutely. In the beginning, I felt a lot of pressure to figure out what my mission statement was as a filmmaker. My parents assured me that it would eventually reveal itself me, and I have found that the stories I’ve written and am most interested in telling, while having such a huge range, all center around experiences in autonomy, particularly bodily autonomy. That is something that Eileen and I bonded over, especially while telling this story. Our aim was to showcase the importance of perspectives that are often silenced for narratives that oversimplify, while giving a platform for these nuanced characters that are really complex. I really admire Eileen’s fearlessness in presenting herself as very nuanced and complex, and I think that is also why this film spoke to her. It is really important to me that in anything I make, and especially this film, I give the space for these complex characters to be seen as fully formed people. That is how I would want to be seen, that is how Eileen wants people to see her, and that’s what anyone wants, right?
It’s going to be really exciting and nerve-wracking to see my film on the big screen, since I have only ever been an audience member for other people’s work. Someone recently asked me what I want people to learn from this film, and I said that I don’t think that there is anything. I can’t expect an audience member to walk out of the theater having learned something. I was just curious to see if by living through those moments with this mother, it would challenge people’s biases regarding these complex events. I wonder if it will make people have a different conversation. I’m interested to see how audience members go through it in the moment. In the aftermath of the kinds of events depicted in the film, people think those responsible and their parents don’t deserve to be front and center in the narrative. If that angers people, I welcome that too because it will make people start to question their own judgments and complicity in these kinds of events. Maybe they will think about why it angers them so much.
Are you eager to continue working both in front of and behind the camera moving forward?
I am really eager to work behind the camera. I will always love acting and hope to keep doing it, but there was something about directing my own film that really helped me start understanding myself in a way that was unexpected.
“His Mother” screens today, August 9th, as part of the HollyShorts Film Festival’s Family Drama program at 2:30pm PT in Los Angeles (for tickets, click here), and on Friday, September 13th, at the Salento International Film Festival, in Italy. For more information on the film, visit its official site.
