Exclusive Interviews with Elle Máijá Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn for THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN
THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN is a new film by two talented female filmmakers, Elle Máijá Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn.
This powerful drama is about a brief encounter between two indigenous women as one of the women is fleeing a domestic abuse situation. The film covers so much more--digging into deeper layers that reflect back a history of systemic abuse suffered at the hands of colonialism.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Máijá and Kathleen before their film was released. THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN was released to Netflix and is currently available.
Emily Clark: Tell me a little bit about your background and what inspired you to work together to make this film?
Máijá: The film was inspired by an experience I had that's very similar to what happens in the film but we fictionalized it but kept the core elements of that original experience. I had predominately worked in documentaries before making this film... I worked as an actor in fiction and drama and that's where that experience came from. I carried that original experience encountering that young woman on that day many years ago. I carried it with me. I wanted to do something with it. I wanted to honor her story and other women like her and also honor our shared experience because it had such a profound impact on me. I wanted to be able to tell the story within real time and keep it within that contained, short time that we spent together. Having predominately directed documentaries, I knew that it would be a technical challenge to direct a film like this. Kathleen has been a friend for a number of years and I really respect her work and who she is as a person. I learn so often through collaborating and working with others...that's how the film came to fruition and how our relationship started.
Emily Clark: Immediately what grabbed me was the title. It was so beautiful and poetic. I definitely resonated with your film. How did you come up with the title?
Máijá: We borrowed the title from an essay by Billy-Ray Belcourt. He's a phenomenally talented young poet. He's Cree from Northern Alberta and he's queer and he's one of the most vibrant voices in the literary community. The essay obviously speaks to so many things within our story. It is a very dense and thoughtful essay. The essay itself speaks to the ways in which indigenous bodies carry the history that we've inherited [and] the ways... that we've embodied the trauma but also the ways that we transcend the trauma. It also speaks to the ways indigenous artists are expected to represent our people and the expectation for us to move on from a past that hasn't ended, as colonialism is ongoing.
Emily Clark: Your film has so many layers that seem to go deeper and deeper both from a sociological and psychological perspective, to the point where it raises those ethical questions about the structure of our so-called developed societies which are desperately broken and the women who have been ignored or thrown to the side. Another thing that really struck me, was the way that you directed the film and the cinematography. For example, the intimacy of the shots through your use of close-ups and shaky camera movements, [and] also the sound design. I felt like it helped to tell the story through Rosie's eyes and I really felt in tune with her and the shots of her walking home, taking off her shoes, etc. For example, there's a scene where she's in the bathroom and you can hear children outside. The audience is just about to find out that she's pregnant. It was so subtle, these elements that you added, but so powerful and really helped us to feel like we could be there with Rosie. Tell me a little bit more about the technical process.
Kathleen: The details were so important in this film. Because of the way we shot, which was as soon as the women meet, the film was shot in one continuous take. Because of that we only had one lens that we were working with so we had to be very specific about what that lens was... everything was carefully choreographed in terms of who we're with in each moment, how close we were and why. To be in a very intimate space with Rosie, in a private space like in the bathroom, the camera being so close to her really allows us to get into her head. With the soundscape we wanted it to be very naturalistic, true to her but we also needed to elevate certain sounds to add to her emotional state and to show the shifts and changes in that state as we went through. When they're on the street...the soundscape out there is quite different from inside of the apartment, or the safehouse or the cab scene, you might notice subtle changes. You hit the nail on the head.
What was it like for both of you to co-direct together? What was that experience like?
Kathleen: the experience was very organic. We've been friends for a while and we have an admiration for each other's work. Because of the way we shot we had an extensive rehearsal period.
Emily Clark: Are there any particular films or filmmakers that you were inspired by?
Máijá: There were quite a few films that inspired us. We were very inspired by the work of Andrea Arnold and Kelly Reichardt. The film Fishtank was very close to what we wanted to work with. Her [Arnold's] ability to work with social realism in a way that... [the] characters maintained integrity was really powerful and that was inspiring. Wendy and Lucy by Kelly Reichardt was another one in the way that it's a very contained simple story but it speaks to issues of class and agency and womens' ability to choose and control their lives confined by class.
Emily Clark: I wanted to talk to you about the issues of racism, prejudice, sexism and the legacy that colonialism has brought to Canada and the United States, specifically. Tell me a little bit more about the representation of First Nations people in film and Native stories. What do you hope this film will do for other First Nations filmmakers?
Máijá: Going back to that original encounter that I had with this woman on that day. I walked away having learned much from that experience. I needed to honor it--to film. There were so many complexities and so much nuance in that simple encounter that speaks to these overwhelmingly large issues. As an indigenous woman and as an indigenous person I've lived the reality of the impacts of colonialism on my people everyday. That being said, I'm so profoundly proud of where I come from and who I come from. My people are so strong and so beautiful and have been through so much and yet our culture is rich and alive. Obviously there's much damage that has been done, but the fact that we're still here is incredible. The film and this very simple story between these two women is obviously about class and race and the ways that they collide in the indigenous community, but it's also about the sovereignty of the body and the body is a political landscape because indigenous womens' bodies have been a site of violence. It's an ongoing legacy. In Canada we have a missing, murdered womens' inquiry and this massive report that we released that basically stated the obvious, that racism is deeply ingrained within society. The work that's often done by police is so deeply insufficient and often leads to racism or racial profiling of indigenous women. We also wanted to speak about the fracturing of indigenous families that happened through forced child removal into residential schools and now foster care. The young woman that I encountered that day hadn't been through foster care. The decision to make Rosie a young woman who had aged out of foster care was one that Kathleen and I made because we felt it was really important to speak to the ways in which the foster system can be deeply damaging to indigenous youth and families. When it comes to representation of indigenous people, there's a long history of misrepresentation and extractive forms of filmmaking. Indigenous people were the first people to be documented on moving film. That history of misrepresentation goes pretty much all the way back to the origins of cinema.
[Now] there's this thriving, beautiful resilient indigenous film community that stretches around the globe. It's really fantastic to be a part of that movement and the cinema wave, especially in Canada, of indigenous filmmakers making features that are speaking to contemporary issues and contemporary representations of diverse lived experiences.
Emily Clark: In response to that, I was thinking about [how] in many ways it does feel like a breakthrough story and one the world desperately needs to see and hear. For so long, as you were mentioning, society and the world, we've turned a blind eye to the suffering of women and families and particular indigenous people. That leads me to ask you questions about resources. What resources are there now for women who might be going through something like what the character Rosie is going through in the film. Are there any resources for families today that there weren't in the past?
Máijá: In that experience I came to the understanding that the services and support systems available to women fleeing violence are deeply underfunded and overwhelmed with need, with the demand. I have not [personally] experienced [this], I haven't had a violent partner, I did not witness domestic violence growing up. I've had the privilege of being sheltered from that experience. I thought that being older, having a more stable life, I thought that I could help her, that I could solve her problem. It wasn't the case at all. It was the confrontation of how naive I was to that reality. All the womens' shelters were full in Vancouver and the surrounding areas. It was just by chance that one of them happened to have a bed that was open that night...the process of writing the script and learning about the issue was challenging and enriching for both of us and we wanted to convey that reality.
Emily Clark: Hopefully this film will help propel change from a legislative or community perspective for people to bring the funds that are needed to help women.
This powerful drama is about a brief encounter between two indigenous women as one of the women is fleeing a domestic abuse situation. The film covers so much more--digging into deeper layers that reflect back a history of systemic abuse suffered at the hands of colonialism.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Máijá and Kathleen before their film was released. THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN was released to Netflix and is currently available.
Emily Clark: Tell me a little bit about your background and what inspired you to work together to make this film?
Máijá: The film was inspired by an experience I had that's very similar to what happens in the film but we fictionalized it but kept the core elements of that original experience. I had predominately worked in documentaries before making this film... I worked as an actor in fiction and drama and that's where that experience came from. I carried that original experience encountering that young woman on that day many years ago. I carried it with me. I wanted to do something with it. I wanted to honor her story and other women like her and also honor our shared experience because it had such a profound impact on me. I wanted to be able to tell the story within real time and keep it within that contained, short time that we spent together. Having predominately directed documentaries, I knew that it would be a technical challenge to direct a film like this. Kathleen has been a friend for a number of years and I really respect her work and who she is as a person. I learn so often through collaborating and working with others...that's how the film came to fruition and how our relationship started.
Emily Clark: Immediately what grabbed me was the title. It was so beautiful and poetic. I definitely resonated with your film. How did you come up with the title?
Máijá: We borrowed the title from an essay by Billy-Ray Belcourt. He's a phenomenally talented young poet. He's Cree from Northern Alberta and he's queer and he's one of the most vibrant voices in the literary community. The essay obviously speaks to so many things within our story. It is a very dense and thoughtful essay. The essay itself speaks to the ways in which indigenous bodies carry the history that we've inherited [and] the ways... that we've embodied the trauma but also the ways that we transcend the trauma. It also speaks to the ways indigenous artists are expected to represent our people and the expectation for us to move on from a past that hasn't ended, as colonialism is ongoing.
Emily Clark: Your film has so many layers that seem to go deeper and deeper both from a sociological and psychological perspective, to the point where it raises those ethical questions about the structure of our so-called developed societies which are desperately broken and the women who have been ignored or thrown to the side. Another thing that really struck me, was the way that you directed the film and the cinematography. For example, the intimacy of the shots through your use of close-ups and shaky camera movements, [and] also the sound design. I felt like it helped to tell the story through Rosie's eyes and I really felt in tune with her and the shots of her walking home, taking off her shoes, etc. For example, there's a scene where she's in the bathroom and you can hear children outside. The audience is just about to find out that she's pregnant. It was so subtle, these elements that you added, but so powerful and really helped us to feel like we could be there with Rosie. Tell me a little bit more about the technical process.
Kathleen: The details were so important in this film. Because of the way we shot, which was as soon as the women meet, the film was shot in one continuous take. Because of that we only had one lens that we were working with so we had to be very specific about what that lens was... everything was carefully choreographed in terms of who we're with in each moment, how close we were and why. To be in a very intimate space with Rosie, in a private space like in the bathroom, the camera being so close to her really allows us to get into her head. With the soundscape we wanted it to be very naturalistic, true to her but we also needed to elevate certain sounds to add to her emotional state and to show the shifts and changes in that state as we went through. When they're on the street...the soundscape out there is quite different from inside of the apartment, or the safehouse or the cab scene, you might notice subtle changes. You hit the nail on the head.
What was it like for both of you to co-direct together? What was that experience like?
Kathleen: the experience was very organic. We've been friends for a while and we have an admiration for each other's work. Because of the way we shot we had an extensive rehearsal period.
Emily Clark: Are there any particular films or filmmakers that you were inspired by?
Máijá: There were quite a few films that inspired us. We were very inspired by the work of Andrea Arnold and Kelly Reichardt. The film Fishtank was very close to what we wanted to work with. Her [Arnold's] ability to work with social realism in a way that... [the] characters maintained integrity was really powerful and that was inspiring. Wendy and Lucy by Kelly Reichardt was another one in the way that it's a very contained simple story but it speaks to issues of class and agency and womens' ability to choose and control their lives confined by class.
Emily Clark: I wanted to talk to you about the issues of racism, prejudice, sexism and the legacy that colonialism has brought to Canada and the United States, specifically. Tell me a little bit more about the representation of First Nations people in film and Native stories. What do you hope this film will do for other First Nations filmmakers?
Máijá: Going back to that original encounter that I had with this woman on that day. I walked away having learned much from that experience. I needed to honor it--to film. There were so many complexities and so much nuance in that simple encounter that speaks to these overwhelmingly large issues. As an indigenous woman and as an indigenous person I've lived the reality of the impacts of colonialism on my people everyday. That being said, I'm so profoundly proud of where I come from and who I come from. My people are so strong and so beautiful and have been through so much and yet our culture is rich and alive. Obviously there's much damage that has been done, but the fact that we're still here is incredible. The film and this very simple story between these two women is obviously about class and race and the ways that they collide in the indigenous community, but it's also about the sovereignty of the body and the body is a political landscape because indigenous womens' bodies have been a site of violence. It's an ongoing legacy. In Canada we have a missing, murdered womens' inquiry and this massive report that we released that basically stated the obvious, that racism is deeply ingrained within society. The work that's often done by police is so deeply insufficient and often leads to racism or racial profiling of indigenous women. We also wanted to speak about the fracturing of indigenous families that happened through forced child removal into residential schools and now foster care. The young woman that I encountered that day hadn't been through foster care. The decision to make Rosie a young woman who had aged out of foster care was one that Kathleen and I made because we felt it was really important to speak to the ways in which the foster system can be deeply damaging to indigenous youth and families. When it comes to representation of indigenous people, there's a long history of misrepresentation and extractive forms of filmmaking. Indigenous people were the first people to be documented on moving film. That history of misrepresentation goes pretty much all the way back to the origins of cinema.
[Now] there's this thriving, beautiful resilient indigenous film community that stretches around the globe. It's really fantastic to be a part of that movement and the cinema wave, especially in Canada, of indigenous filmmakers making features that are speaking to contemporary issues and contemporary representations of diverse lived experiences.
Emily Clark: In response to that, I was thinking about [how] in many ways it does feel like a breakthrough story and one the world desperately needs to see and hear. For so long, as you were mentioning, society and the world, we've turned a blind eye to the suffering of women and families and particular indigenous people. That leads me to ask you questions about resources. What resources are there now for women who might be going through something like what the character Rosie is going through in the film. Are there any resources for families today that there weren't in the past?
Máijá: In that experience I came to the understanding that the services and support systems available to women fleeing violence are deeply underfunded and overwhelmed with need, with the demand. I have not [personally] experienced [this], I haven't had a violent partner, I did not witness domestic violence growing up. I've had the privilege of being sheltered from that experience. I thought that being older, having a more stable life, I thought that I could help her, that I could solve her problem. It wasn't the case at all. It was the confrontation of how naive I was to that reality. All the womens' shelters were full in Vancouver and the surrounding areas. It was just by chance that one of them happened to have a bed that was open that night...the process of writing the script and learning about the issue was challenging and enriching for both of us and we wanted to convey that reality.
Emily Clark: Hopefully this film will help propel change from a legislative or community perspective for people to bring the funds that are needed to help women.
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