One of my favorite things to do at Sundance is hop around to different restaurants and coffee shops, and just chat with people. When I went to a pizza place in the downtown area of Park City, I saw the young cast of the short film, “Debaters,” directed by Alex Heller (“The Year Between”). They were sitting together eating pizza, and having the time of their lives. I immediately went up to them, and said in my midwest accent, “You guys are awesome! I saw your film. I’m from Chicago, and I’m a fan.” I told them that I was from Cinema Femme Magazine and I was so excited to cover their film. As I said this to them, their faces lit up.
Co-starring alongside these talented fresh faces are two well-known individuals who were not at the pizza place): J. Smith-Cameron, who appeared in Alex’s previous film, and playwright/filmmaker Kenneth Longerman. I was so happy to follow up with Alex after the festival and get to talk with her about her film. “Debaters” is a proof of concept for a feature about a high school debate team. We see a snapshot of their debate over what it means to be American. One of the judges, played by J. Smith-Cameron, has a bit of a breakdown during the judging. The dichotomy between the characters is fascinating, and I now can’t wait to see the feature.
What brought you to this project?
My dad is an English teacher at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and he coached the congressional debate team there. I was living with my parents for several years in my twenties while I was trying to develop my film “The Year Between,” and for a weekend gig, I started judging these debate tournaments. At the beginning, I was doing it to try to make some money, but then I started to be absorbed in this world. I became obsessed with it when I saw how competitive and exciting it was. I loved working those tournaments. I thought that the students and the debaters that I met were so fascinating, and I realized that I wanted to tell stories set in this place.
Can you talk about your producing team. Great people!
They were great. Eugene Sun Park and I have worked together before. He was one of the producers on “The Year Between.” This was my first time working with Angie Gaffney and Brittani Ward. They’re great partners and a dynamic duo. Brittani is also the casting director and she found these amazing young people to play the debaters.
Do you know how she went about that process?
I think she had previously cast a movie that called for young people, so she had already been digging into local talent agencies. She collected names and asked people to submit a tape, which I then watched a bunch of from the people she selected. Brittani found a great group of people to fill out this team. Most of them don’t even have any dialogue, but they’re acting and their characters are still so crucial to the film. The reactions of the debaters is what brings the piece to life. How they react helps people who are watching it to understand when things are going well versus when they’re going really badly and something is wrong.
Angie is a seasoned producer with a deep knowledge of the crew and working in Chicago. I lived in Chicago, and was there when I filmed “The Year Between.” But I no longer live there full-time since I’ve recently moved to LA. So it was good to have the producers there in Chicago working together collectively. And Eugene is just a great creative partner. He was really the first person I came to about this project, and I told him that I wanted to make this film about a debate team. I felt that it was so exciting, and he was one of the first people to agree with me. His company decided to produce the short and really believed in the vision.
I love that this film is a proof of concept for a feature. Where are you at in the process?
We have not officially taken the script out yet to producing partners and financiers, but that is something we’d like to do soon. We’ve attached some of the cast to the feature, like J. Smith-Cameron, who’s in the short.
How was it working with J. Smith-Cameron again?
She is an amazing collaborator and friend. She’s a great actress with a huge range, and she’s very funny. I think she nails this Midwestern figure really well for someone who isn’t from the Midwest and has never lived there. She really taps in creatively to something that feels super-familiar to me, and we just have fun together. We have a great relationship and the same is true of the one I have with Kenny, her husband Kenneth Lonergan.
Kenneth Lonergan is a great director. Has he been kind of a mentor to you during this process?
YYeah, definitely. I met him through J because they’re married. He’s a prolific filmmaker, and I had the idea of asking him to act in this because he very rarely acts in stuff. So I thought it would be great to have the two of them in the film. He gave me really good notes on the script for the short, and was very helpful. For instance, there isn’t a ton of talking in the short that isn’t outside of the debate. So the creative challenge is how to tell a narrative story about characters with real emotions who are on a journey, all the while with very little real estate to do so. Kenny helped me with tracking the emotional arcs of these adult judges in very minimal, tiny ,subtle ways throughout the picture.
What has it been like bringing all the young actors to Sundance? It was so funny when I saw them all sitting together at a pizza place.
Having them there was the highlight of the festival for me. I knew that the lead, Sripadh Puligilla, was coming, and I’d been in touch with them about it. But I had no idea that they were in a group chat planning a trip. They all met through the film a year ago, and I thought they might have stayed in touch. But when I sent an email out about Sundance, no one responded to it. When I told them recently that I thought they had not cared about coming, they said, “No, we were literally planning on our trip as soon as we found out.” Nine of them ended up coming out, which was incredible.
We gave them tickets to the premiere, but beyond that, they did everything on their own. They waited in line for movies, they got on the waitlists, and they went to parties. They’ve made a lot of friends too, and it was just awesome. One day, IMDb Pro did a video interview of them on the street, and then posted it on Instagram. It was just heartwarming to be there with them. Sundance is amazing, but it’s also very busy, and it can be stressful. But there was something so genuine and pure about just seeing this group of young people being so excited all the time and having so much fun. It was a reminder for me to have fun and live in the moment.
What do you hope people see in your film?
I hope people see the intrigue and excitement in this world of congressional debate. I hope they become interested in the characters of these teenagers who are working really hard, but at the end of the day, are still kids who are charming and endearing and youthful. The adults are complicated and come to judge the debate for a lot of different reasons, and some of them are really weird. Not all the judges should probably be there. But I think it’s interesting to have this strange mix of people at these tournaments. In this short, you see people who come from really different backgrounds having a dialogue about a sensitive topic, such as what it’s like to live in America. There’s a huge gap in age and education and wealth and all these different, huge discrepancies between these judges and these kids.
Seeing people discuss something, even if it’s a debate or if it’s purely hypothetical, and seeing if they can really listen to each other while poking around different types of logic is something our country needs more than ever. This short film is a great example of what happens when people who are different listen to each other and have a dialogue. It’s interesting because no one has an exact definition of what it means to be American. They think they understand it or have it pegged down, or it only applies to this or that, but it really is such a huge, amorphous concept and label. It’s good to have an open mind about that.
