Premiering in competition at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, “In Transit” is a tender, introspective queer drama that marks a major moment for its creative team. Directed by Jaclyn Bethany (“Tell That to the Winter Sea,” “Highway One”) and written by and starring Alex Sarrigeorgiou, the film makes its World Premiere on August 17th.
Set in a small town in Maine, “In Transit” follows Lucy (Sarrigeorgiou), a bartender settled into the quiet rhythms of life with her longtime boyfriend Tom (François Arnaud). But when she meets Ilse (Jennifer Ehle), a drifting artist who asks her to model, a subtle yet powerful shift begins. As Lucy’s sense of certainty unravels, the film explores questions of desire, identity, and the meaning we find—or lose—along the way.
Produced by Valmora Productions, BKE Productions, and Little Language Films, “In Transit” brings together an impressive team both in front of and behind the camera. In this interview, we speak with the all-women producing team about the story behind the film, its creative journey, and what they hope audiences will take away from this gorgeous and moving work.
*The film is also in competition at Deauville American Film Festival
Let’s start with you Alex, what was the inspiration for this story?
Alex Sarrigeorgiou (AS): I started working on the script a few years ago when my day job was working as an art model. I started working at an art school, and then I worked a lot with private artists and painters. And I remember having the thought, when I was sitting for a drawing session with like four people on the Upper West Side. It was such a bizarre thing. Like these people are looking at you, and it’s so intimate, but they’re also not looking at you at all, they’re thinking about the shadow under your nose, they’re not thinking about you exactly. I thought it was such a weird thing, where it feels so intimate, but it also feels so disconnected. I thought about that, and knew I wanted to write something about it.
At the same time I was going through a thing in my own life where I was feeling exhausted with the hustle of New York and the hustle of, you know, being an actor and being an artist and a filmmaker. I was like “man, would I be so much happier if I moved to a small town and got a job and I had a community I liked and just stopped hustling?” I think what ended up happening is that these two characters became these two sides of my own existential crisis, that are kind of trying to figure it out and pushing each other.
Jaclyn, how did you get involved with this project?
Jaclyn Bethany (JB): Well, I’ve worked with C.C. a couple of times, and we’ve known each other since we were 17. So we have a long history, both as friends and collaborators. And I can have C.C. talk about how she found the script. But she reached out to me, I think just informally, as a friend, to read it. And then she spoke about possibly collaborating on bringing it to life. This was maybe three and a half years ago, and it progressed from there.
I came on officially three years ago and then I became a part of the development process with C.C. and Alex, then we eventually went into pre-production.
C.C., why don’t we jump to you since it seems like you were involved early on.
C.C. Kellogg (CK): Yeah, I was lucky to read this script in the pandemic days of 2021. I had recently moved from Brooklyn to Maine. I was splitting time, but spending most of my time up here and reading hundreds of scripts in that kind of crazy inter-pandemic moment. I was really looking for something that felt specific to New England that I could sink my teeth into. And I read Alex’s script, and in those first 25 pages I was immediately so excited. When I was reading the script I expected to go in one direction and then it surprised me in ways that were subtle and emotional, rather than via topsy-turvy twists and turns.
And there was such a bond between me and Alex. I had a really good meeting with her and we decided that we were going to work together and bring this script to life. I feel really lucky to have been a part of it early on.
It wasn’t set in Maine at that point. So I pitched to Alex on the possibility of shooting the film in Maine. Alex made a number of trips to Maine to create the specificity of place, which I think is really felt in the film. We shot the film in the Midcoast and it was only possible because of a lot of partners, friends, and businesses, especially local businesses who really made this happen for us. When Alex came in the beginning I think she traveled here for the first time in early 2022, just to see it in season, like the season of the film, so in the off season in the wintertime. Her time brought a lot of texture to the film.
Tara, can you talk about your entry way to this project?
Tara Sheffer (TS): I was so delighted to join this team. Jaclyn told me about this project that she was producing and directing, and I was so excited to jump in and help. I came in after the shooting had already commenced, and was so pleased to support the team and support the project as a producer. I read the script and thought it was just gorgeous. And then to also hear that Jennifer was attached was incredible. It was really a wonderful collaboration in terms of stepping into this group of female filmmakers. I think that was something that also really drew me to the project that it was a bunch of women doing this, and that it was a story about women in rural America, which is very interesting to me. And I’m so happy about how the film has turned out. I think Alex’s performance is incredible and it’s a stand out.
Sarah?
Sarah Keyes (SK): I know Jaclyn from undergraduate school, and I think she knew that this film would resonate with me. As a bisexual woman who left the hustle and bustle of the big city to relocate to western Massachusetts, there were certainly a lot of themes in this film that really excited me artistically. Jaclyn and I have worked on a couple of projects together, and I’ve always been eager for an opportunity to collaborate with C.C. It was a gift to get to know Alex through this process and have the opportunity to learn from Tara’s expertise. This whole project was being run by young women whom I really admire, so it was an easy sell for me.
Let’s talk about the cast. Alex, you’re obviously the star in the film. I’m interested to hear how Jennifer got on board and how it was working with her and Francois?
AS: First of all, we worked with an amazing casting director, Marin Hope, who helped us cast these two roles. And Jennifer was from the get at the top of our list. She read the script and signed on. I was over the moon about it. I grew up watching Jennifer in “Pride and Prejudice” with my mom, so it was a real sort of a pinch me moment.
But she’s just an incredible actor and a really generous co-star and was just wonderful to work with. And same with Francois. I mean, we brought Francois on later and he’s just lovely, lovely to work with. I feel like it was so nice too because we shot on location in Maine. And you get to really live with these people and hang out and get breakfast together. And then you go to set and it’s such an intimate thing when you’re spending all day every day with these people on location. I feel very lucky.
JB: Like Alex said, when I read the script, I think Jennifer was the first person who came to mind for me. Our Casting Director said it would be amazing if she would consider the film. So, it was also the strike. We were very lucky to make this movie during the strike. And yes, she read the script, and I had several calls with her. And I think if you look at Jennifer’s filmography it’s very interesting because she’s involved in a lot of very big productions, but she also really supports films by young female filmmakers.This film falls into the latter category. And for Francois, I feel like C.C. can speak more to how he came on board.
CK: I had seen Francois’s work in a great film called “The Winter House,” which is set in New England. He’s opposite the fabulous Lily Taylor and he really impressed me in that film and we knew he would bring something charismatic to Tom. In another screenwriter’s hands he might have been less of a compelling force, and in another actor’s hands as well, or another director’s hands. Everyone kind of conspired to make that leg of the stool a real point of interest and intrigue. We are so lucky to have Francois as the third lead in this film.
JB: Tara has a story of her interaction with Jennifer in the past.
TS (laughing): It’s not like I’m super embarrassed to tell this story, but it’s a little embarrassing. Early in my career I worked for a Hollywood producer and I dealt with a lot of stars every day and did not get starstruck, except when Jennifer Ehle came in for an audition. I was supposed to go and ask for her coffee order, and I could not get the words out of my mouth. I have a Jane Austen tattoo and I’m a huge fan of 1995’s BBC Pride and Prejudice. It’s very important to me. So to see her sitting in this waiting room, I finally got her a coffee and I regained my cool, but that was a really impactful moment for me. When I signed on to “In Transit”, my first contact with Jennifer was her calling me while I was biking over the Williamsburg Bridge. I didn’t know it was her because it was an unknown number. So I answered and I said, “hi, this is Tara.” And she said, “hi, this is Jennifer Ehle.” And I was like, “excuse me, I have to pull over.” So then I was standing on the Williamsburg Bridge, talking to Jennifer Ehle about parking logistics. It was an interesting, very cool full circle moment to have met her as an assistant and then to go on and produce a movie that she was starring in. And she was sweet and extremely professional and incredibly kind in both interactions.
So I want to talk about the technical aspects of the film…
JB: Alex had worked with Sam before, and this was Sam’s first feature as a cinematographer. So she was very, very excited, and had a lot of great instincts and ideas naturally. I think a lot of what I was thinking about and looking for in the cinematography is this idea of a canvas and how we could achieve that painterly look through the different locations. For example, there are three main locations in the movie, and I often found myself questioning how each place looks and feels, how do we build that specific texture?
Sam and I really talked about creating that and having the film focussed on Lucy’s point of view. So in the bar, it’s much warmer. You feel like it’s a safe place for her. We had one camera — it was an Arri 35. We shot on Cooke lenses, anamorphic. So it creates that wide, scope-like feeling, which I think is really considering the rural winter landscape. It places each character, object or location at the center of that world. And then Lucy’s house was an extension of the bar, which felt safe, but a little bit cooler palette wise.
I think my favorite scenes are the studio scenes. Because that is really where the narrative starts fully and the film comes alive and the core relationship starts. We did a lot of oners and wides which set the tone on set. And we started doing that up in Maine at the bar and we had a great first AD (Emilio Subia) as well who kept track of our brains as well..
And sometimes Sam and I would be like, “No, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this.” And he was like, no go other the way, follow your initial gut, because the visual language of the film became so specific. There are only two handheld portions of the film, like at that moment in the film at the bar where there is anxiety with the main character Lucy. I think it’s really interesting the intimacy and the distance you feel from the characters, specifically Lucy, through the camera work. When she and Ilse are together, it’s almost like a dance.
And that, I think, is really unique and also brought in really beautifully through Sam.
And the sound?
JB: We had a great sound recordist on set, James Demer, which C.C. found. He was an in-house recordist for the show Survivor. But he had also done a string of amazing indies, including “Winter’s Bone,” so was familiar with the kind of art house movie we were trying to make.
And I had worked with a sound house that’s two female creative and life partners — Shana (Pilonieta) and Michelle (Deniesse), and their company is called Shanelle Productions. I think their personal journey added to the way they understood the story. They did an amazing job. It was a long process, because the film is very quiet yet layered. For example, all the scenes that take place at the lake had no sound. They built all that foley for ice skating. There’s a lot of little magical elements like that. Filmmaking!
The bar is the first location we see, and I think setting the tone from the get-go is that this is Lucy’s world and how does that space feel to her. At the top of the film, it’s very alive. We wanted to make the sounds familiar — like you always hear the bell when people come into the bar, which was written in the script.
The score is very subtle. The composer we worked with, Juampa, is an amazing New York Cuban-Italian composer. He has a lot of very interesting influences. He was also on set for our portion of the shoot as our driver, but had no idea what the movie was about or what we were filming! It was funny when he watched the movie, he was like, “wow.” He said, “I had no idea you were shooting that.” He got inspired!
TS: Juampa is an incredible filmmaker. And so understanding the vocabulary that Jaclyn was going after, I think made him such a good collaborator for this project. I was so excited to hear the work that he did, because it is so subtle and so nuanced, but brings the quiet reflective nature of what this film is.
As a producer Sarah, what was important for you to bring to this film, in terms of either the environment of the set… what did you want to bring to this film?
SK: When we were shooting in Maine, I had a family emergency and had to leave the set really unexpectedly. So part of the journey of this film was that we had to pivot often. Something unexpected would happen, and we would have to make a backup plan in the moment. We had to really trust one another and trust in all the prep work we had done. It was an added challenge of having to step away, hoping that you’re organized enough that somebody else can step in and carry the project forward. And I really have to give a shoutout to the other women on this team who were uplifting each other. I think we all had talents and special skills that complemented each other and filled in the gaps.
I think my superpower as a collaborator and as a producer, was helping assemble a team. I worked with the actors, the technicians, the vendors… I like to be the person who knows how every piece of the puzzle fits together.
I’m certainly not the most experienced producer, but Jaclyn has a lot of faith in giving women opportunities that they might not receive on another film set. I was able to get the opportunity to learn on the job. And sometimes it’s just using common sense to just fill whatever need you or demand you have at the moment. But I’m always very grateful for the opportunity to learn by doing in collaboration with people who really know their stuff.
What do you hope people see in your film?
AS: There’s a lot. I think one of the most important things to me, like I said earlier, is that this kind of represents two different ways of being to me. Two different ways of aspiring to have a full life are represented in these two characters. And I know that’s a relatable thing for so many people.
And there’s a sense, I think, sometimes in these kinds of movies where somebody from the big city goes to a small town that the big city is the correct answer that is gonna make your dreams come true. But that’s not always the case, you know we need the push and pull of both these forces sometimes. And the other thing for me is it’s important to have made a queer film that is not a big coming out story — as vital as that is, you know — and that’s also not, these people are the loves of each other’s lives, because I don’t think they are, but I think it’s a story where somebody changes your life in a way. And then you move on and now you’re slightly changed people. It’s important to have that kind of story with a queer lens as well.
CK: I think something I hope people see and enjoy in this film is… I mean Alex has written such a beautiful script delivered by Jaclyn with such confidence. I just think the openness of the story, the multiplicity of readings that the film contains in terms of its emotional color palette as well as — I don’t want to give any spoilers — but those final moments for Lucy. I’m really excited to chat with people about where they feel the film lands. And I think it’s going to be really gratifying to encounter other people’s readings and reactions.
TS: I think that there’s something about it, like C.C. said, that we nailed it on the head with the confidence in which Alex wrote the script and Jaclyn delivered bringing it to the screen. There’s just a confidence to the pacing and the nuance. I hope that audiences really are able to settle in to the pace and it is a beautiful kind of gorgeous experience that you get to go on, which is both happy and heart-breaking. And like Alex said, it’s not a Queer film about a big coming out and it’s also not this traumatic event that happens.
SK: Circling back to what Alex said, I think this core question of “what makes a full life” gets people connecting deeply to the themes of the film. Asking ourselves, “when these outside people, inspirations, and influences come into our world, how do we hold on to our center and what’s truly important to us?” And sometimes that means you have to break yourself open and rebuild. I hope audiences feel that this film is unapologetically female — both in its subject matter and the way we worked together as a team to create it. I think the audience will sense that and the beauty of that.
JB: I mean everybody said such amazing things. I think for me, as someone who came on to this as a director from the start I was always thinking how can I tell this story and why do I want to tell this story?
I didn’t try to judge the characters and I hope that I allowed them to just live. I think that it is something that audiences — hopefully — can recognize, especially women. In my experience, this was the most powerful part of the film — capturing these two women objectively, Lucy and Ilse. I want the poetry, the ambiguity and the questions the film asks to linger in people’s minds after they watch it. To me, that makes powerful cinema.
