Screenwriter/Playwright/Theatre and Film Director, Dr. Sophia Romma is the screenwriter and producer of the Garnet Grand Prix Award-Winning international art-house motion-picture, Poor Liza, starring Emmy Award-Winning and three-time Golden Globe winning actor, Ben Gazzara and Obie, two-time Emmy and Academy Award-Winning actress, Lee Grant. Poor Liza, directed by the émigré cult director of Liquid Sky, won honorable mention for best original drama phantasma at the Cairo Film Festival, took second prize for revival of surrealism and mysticism in film, won first prize at the 21st Moscow International Film Festival for the Bunuel Film Series Tribute and was awarded the Garnet Grand Prix Bracelet from the St. Petersburg Literature in Film Festival, which is equivalent to receiving the coveted Oscar.

Tell us about your background and when did you decided to become a filmmaker?

I arrived on American shores as a six-year-old child and had witnessed my mother face the gruesome challenging fate brought on by immigration, the dislocation of the émigré soul and the eventual rather heart-wrenching assimilation which is the fate of the émigré who stands obliged to blend into a society that is not often welcoming and in fact quite frankly unapologetically judgmental of differing cultures and customs. I am a child of the Cold War and having fled Soviet Russia due to religious and ethnic persecution, as most fledging immigrants; I found immense and infinite escapism in fantasy with the unfolding of slow seductively intricate and sublime images on the screen at the very moment that I had set foot in the Film Form in Bohemian Greenwich Village, New York.  I was captivated and enthralled by the sheer elegance of these mystical alluring 24 frames per second captured for an eternity on celluloid and mesmerized by that sin in soft focus unraveled by the motion-pictures. Film, in my humble opinion, is a creative medium in which much like crooning the blues or playing jazz notes, the soul of humanity is exposed frame by frame before the lens of the human eye. Hence, one is immersed in that cinematic thrilling whirlpool as the human condition in unveiled, hopefully resonating with a global multitude. I cannot righteously admit to instantaneously deciding to become a filmmaker like Poof! Rather, I decided to write for film, to be a screenwriter which is a special beast, and to paint in stark images, employing descriptive words to sing the songs of life, light, death, pain, pathos, drama, love, lust and the eternal suffering of the human condition by depicting lives spun in tales via the craft of film. The first film I had seen at the Film Forum was a Knife in the Water by Roman Polanski.  It was anything but a film shot taking into account an impressionable youth’s sensibility. However, this uncanny psychological thriller was a wet and wild drama and being so young it had ignited my spirit to explore that delicate volatile dynamic between intense intimate uncomfortable spaces occupied by gripping spirits entangled in the septic verse of the vespers encroaching upon solipsistic minds. Since the epistemological position reveals that solipsism entails that knowledge of any aspect of life outside of one’s own mind is a grave uncertainty—I have felt the longing desire to explore the internal and external world of the mind which cannot be truly known and which does not really exist outside of the mind of the beholder.  I wanted to make films so that I could probe into the epistemic theories of truth. In portraying verisimilitude—I attempt to treat film as a lyrical composition which is an excursion into the principles of truth-like-ness. After all, cinema often mirrors our lives to the point of precise excruciation thrust upon us by the very act of living which is an artform in itself. 

Films that inspired you to become a filmmaker?

The cinema of the former Czechoslovakia, as well as the current Czech Republic and Slovakia, is indisputably some of the most richly visual cinema ever made in the history of the motion-picture industry. I was definitely inspired by masterpieces such as The Shop on Main Street, Pacho, the Brigand of Hybe, The Feather Fairy, Let the Princess Stay with Us, Closely Watched Trains, Ragtime, Man on the Moon, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I have also been greatly inspired by Au Hasard De Balthazar, The Nun (1966), The Diary of a Chambermaid, Summer of Sam, Mean Streets, The Piano, Agnes of God, Fanny and Alexander, Virgin Spring, Cries and Whispers, When Harry Met Sally, Cleo from 5 to 7, The Bicycle Thieves, Pierrot Le Fou, and Pickpocket, merely to name a few masterpieces of cinematic integrity wrapped in coils of fantasy.  I would be remiss if I failed to mention the films of Martin Scorsese in particular, as he taught film at my Alma Mater, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. I am fan of his films, Casino and Goodfellas. I also greatly admire Spike Lee’s films, especially Jungle Fever, Crooklyn and Malcolm X.  I have been immeasurably impressed by the films of Ingmar Bergman such as the ingenious Persona, Wild Strawberries, and The Seventh Seal.   This is most definitely not an exhaustive list of films that have egged me on to become a filmmaker and a screenwriter. I fawn over Andrei Tarkovsky’ metaphysically dark films such as Mirror and Stalker.  I cannot fail to mention Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant films such as Throne of Blood, Drunken Angel and Stray Dog.  Mr. Kurosawa innovatively utilized the Axial Cut and the Cut on Motion shots, which I admire. In terms of acting, I like to appear in cameo roles, preferably in black and white as I am not terribly photogenic and the camera simply does not love me. However, acting in my own films, is challenging and somewhat cryptic.  I appear as the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock did, in some phantom scene as a backdrop so that the audience may acknowledge and hence emphatically exclaim at some point in time: “Look, there’s the director, Sophia Romma!” 

Who is your biggest influence? 

Robert Bresson. Robert Bresson is the epitome of ecclesiastical cinema bordering on a manic adherence to the concept of God’s existence and the toll that human suffering takes on those who expatiate for their earthly sins. As one of my other film icons stated about the cinematic craft of Mr. Bresson; I too feel as does the artful ground-breaking Jean-Luc Goddard: “Bresson is the French Cinema, as Fyodor Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is German music.” Bresson’s films are imbued with the presence of Deity underscoring a baffling mysticism and a celestial lyricism. Hence for me, Bresson is the essence of film as he skillfully mines the touchstones of humanity and reaches the epicenter of the heart and soul of a singular cinematic frame elevating the medium to a cathartic opera before a weeping in sync audience. I also deeply admire Otto Preminger who directed more than thirty-five feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre, simply because I hail from Off-Broadway and Off-off Broadway where I had commenced by writing and directing career.  I am a fan of Mr. Preminger’s film noire mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel.  I found his film, Anatomy of A Murder simply brilliant, especially for those who had graduated from Law School, as I have. I found his movie, Advice and Consent, an American political drama, to be most moving. 

What were some of the challenges you had to face in making your films?

I would have to say that the most challenging film I had worked on was my most recent labor of love, Used and Borrowed Time. We were shooting on a very tight budget. We were obliged to shoot in the dead of winter with snowfalls and raging whiplashing winds. Our post-production Estonian team was riddled with the dilemma of working during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic where the entire world was paralyzed by looming death, an economic crisis and a medical calamity which taxed healthcare systems to the maximum and altered the lives of each member of society on a multi-faceted level. This film was indeed a labor of love during the time of cholera called Covid. I found my film, Poor Liza, to be quite torturous in shooting as well, since it was the first film to be shot on location with breathtaking scenes in the center of the Red Square in Moscow (back in 1998), in the former Soviet Union, and our producers had to obtain special permission from the Kremlin to shoot those scenes by Saint Basil’s Cathedral, which was no small feat, obviously. Furthermore, my esteemed actor, the Academy Award Nominee, Ben Gazzara, an icon in Hollywood, had indulged in a bit too much vodka since it was frigid and in shooting one of our main scenes in which Mr. Gazzara was lifted sky high against a blue screen with some markers, engaged in the act of a flying narrator named Karamzin, Ben kept hollering at the crew as he was hoisted: “Be careful of my balls, they are precious!” The rest of the cast, including the fabulously talented Lee Grant, burst out in boisterous laughter and had some great fun, however the filming was riddled with chaos from military incursions to curfew impositions. We were all so thrilled to return to the United States when the shooting of the film had culminated that we cried tears of pure joy.

Do you have a favorite genre to work in? Why is it your favorite?

I like to work in the genre of sentimentalism, allegorical symbolism, mystic fantasy, surrealism, absurdism, and expressionism. I am a steadfast disciple of the La Nouvelle Vague, German Expressionism and Italian Neo-Realism.  The Golden Age of Italian Cinema has insidiously inspired me in that oldies but goodies mannerism with stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location, often employing the talents of non-professional actors to bring forth that authentic quality shamelessly portraying the concept of our tormented human nature while by the same token our propensity of unspeakable atrocities as people against others who are less fortunate. Themes of everyday life, including poverty, oppression, injustice, and desperation are all too familiar to me as an émigré and as the daughter of refugees. However, in order for the audience to swallow the harsh pills of reality; I attempt to add the water of baptisms so that universally speaking—unbearable reality is laced with the hope of surrealism, escapism and a false sense of spiritual heroism—a recipe for a tolerable yet engaging cinematic experience without having to wallow in the pain of others to the extent of desiring the death of one’s own persona in the face of human misery without the prospects of certain redemption and resurrection. German Expressionism entices my abstract sense as a filmmaker. Film ought to express itself in shadowy, enigmatic landscapes of mystery to convey nightmares of the heart, longings of the passionate and the obsessions of the haunted screen where actors play out the lives of their living counterparts—those who actually watch films reveal their own social circumstances behind veiled scrims as the camera roams wild through decrepit purple stocking slums, evoking images of pimps smoking cigars, femme fatales swinging off monkey bars and brute deceptive cads playing poker in the dingy cobblestoned alleyways. I admire the French New Wave genre and those respective directors for their unconventional cinematic language which broke the barriers of French Cinema. Revered directors such as Claude Chabral, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and Francois Truffaut were my greatest influences in film. I also work with repetitive dialogue, jump cuts and time lapse to hammer in the auteur’s distinctive and discriminate point of view and to deliver the plot in a staccato manner. Low budget, location shot films, free style editing, loosely constructed narratives, spontaneity and non-politicized cinema has fascinated me from the onset of my film career.  I accept the dilemma of taking unpopular stances but shun away from appearing as a stooge dictating on the edge of a soapbox, perched at the pinnacle of pretentious pompousness. Cinema is art and art should not preach—it should move and shake, capture and overtake, consume and exhume. I do not mean to sound crass but as corpses may be exhumed from the ground so may stale emotional states that have long been put to rest.  Film allows for the blooming of intense sentiments so that a holocaust of lost souls can be reclaimed in the form of embers from flickering motion-pictures.  

What’s your all-time favorite movie and why?

Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is perhaps the greatest film of all time.  I take a keen and a sort of depraved pleasure in watching this film’s unique cynicism burgeon on film and overtake the most unsuspecting and naïve spectators with its prophetic commentary on war, the burden which nations carry in a race towards unattainable exceptionalism while nursing the psychosis of competitive warfare among ambitious actor states willing to subdue and crush the temperament of their own citizens solely to rule the world stage. This dark comedy satirizes the Cold War panic of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. This film is a comedic tragic triumph over the perversity and dementia of power-tripping. Kubrick’s sardonic heavy-handed direction is no subtle attempt to socially and astutely comment on the absurdity of space wars and on the detrimental pain that war creates, scarring and disfiguring future generations both mentally and physically. 

 If you could work with anyone in the world, who would that person be?

I have admired Spike Lee for decades. He was also my professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The screenplay for Mr. Lee’s iconic film, Do the Right Thing, was my screenwriting bible. It was a perfectly tailored film in which Brooklyn, New York’s simmering racist culture was brutally exposed on a hot summer day. I admire filmmakers who set the tone—the ambiance of a socially significant motion-picture while steadfastly keeping to a plastered season and are exquisitely able to spin a lamentable tale within the confines of the stifling beaming sun, ferreting out those rat racists of Brooklyn equipped with undertones of such sadness brought to the forefront in bitter sweet notes of comedy. Mr. Lee is a master of this fading genre. 

Tell us something most people don't know about you.

Most people who do not know me well, or those who attain merely a faint glimpse of my character do not have an inkling that I suffer from debilitating anxiety.  I have battled this fear of apprehension regarding the future, excessive nervousness and worry about not being accepted by my colleagues or my friends and family ever since I began to express this hounding angst as a child of ten, whence I commenced upon my poetical escapades and decided to become a poet or a lady of verse. I presume that those who come across this interview now know that I am an anxious being, so it is no longer my secret. 

The one person who has truly believed in you throughout your career? 

My mother is the one person who truly believed in my work throughout my career by supporting me through the harshest of financial times and the trying meanderings of an artist’s youthful follies to succeed in this most challenging industry riddled with hurdles at each turn.  My Mama and might I add, my grandmother, have held this burning torch of faith in my artistry and in my cinematic craft which I so deeply appreciate.  I am a mother myself and have come to the realization of how pivotal it is to support your children’s dreams whatever they may be. While my aunt always called me touched in the head and mad, my mother and her mother in turn, recognized that I had a spark of talent. I admire my Mama so much for believing in me and supporting me in my sincere and unfaltering desire to make movies. I would never have had the courage to make Used and Borrowed Time, had it not been for the support of my beloved Mama. 

What was the most important lesson you had to learn as a filmmaker?

Films are the most sacred form of artistic expression, but a director must not make a film out of revenge or hatred. I learned that filmmaking is an art of love and not an art of the battle-axe.  While I do not necessary believe that a director ought to shoot a film as a therapeutic experience—making a film, recounting a sad true story or conceptualizing a fairytale means that you must be married to your craft and that translates to never having to settle for mediocrity or insincerity but to shoot the film that you wish to make while keeping your artistic integrity in tact through the passion and admiration that you possess for this unique craft. In other words, directors warrant a committed relationship to their film projects, to their cast, crew and to their producers—there can be no mistresses involved, that’s sacrilegious to the art form and desecrates a film project from its conception with a dishonest approach. For an actor, I believe it is most important to believe in your character’s existence and to fancy yourself as that character. If the actor strays from the poignancy of the specific character trait that he or she must portray—the truth in that specific portrayal is lost and that is a grievance to the nature of the actor.  For screenwriters, I feel that the profession calls for a preponderance of stamina in creative but structured writing—it’s a craft and one that beckons a blue print outline with a definitive theme, plot points and solid drama.  The screenwriter needs discipline—if a writer procrastinates it may consume the project and send the artist into a drinking stupor—at least that is my personal experience with that particular inadequacy. 

Is it harder to get started or to keep going? What was the particular thing that you had to conquer to do either?

I firmly believe that it is much harder to begin.  There you are, staring at a series of blank pages, mortified to commence the creative journey. You are not certain where the ebbing paths shall take you and where your artistic choices will lead.  The debris—thick with heaviness way upon your soul and the obstacles mount against your hide with each blank hill of a page.  In order to conquer that debilitating fear in the pursuit of screenwriting, I have to clear my mind, find the inspiration and let my fingers do the talking.  Then my heart will pour itself onto those taunting pages and I find that I can sustain this fighting feeling for as long as I need to finish the screenplay. With filmmaking, I feel that once on set, the sustenance of continuing to shoot for lengthy periods of time in different turbulent locations is fatiguing and so one must call upon the muses to harness stamina in order to keep inspired and motivated. A director is the master of his own ship but there are pirates on deck to watch out for lest they hijack your entire film production and you are left with a grip devoid of an artist’s dream. 

What keeps you motivated? 

Writing and shooting a compelling story keeps me motivated. Memories from the heart are like souvenirs to share with the audience. Film graces you with the favor to hold an audience captive while unleashing a story of a human struggle, a tender desire, or a wanton ill which shackles and stifles society.  If I can move a soul to ponder over humanity’s plight; that serves as my sincere motivation.  Naturally, I aim to entertain, above all, but I do not wish to reel an audience hook line and sinker with frivolity. There exists a plethora of mundane works of art that circulate in the sphere of cinema and that’s a pity because it diminishes the beauty of capturing that sacred art form on celluloid or during these progressive days, on digital. I wish to tantalize a spectator’s mind or to touch the soul of a viewer through submerging the audience in Dante’s Inferno and seeing if the audience can forgive me for the gratification of presenting life as I see that life, entangled in the webs of its virtue or entrapped by the horrors of its vice. 

How has your style evolved? 

My passion for film shall never dissipate and while I have been writing plays for the theatre for nearly twenty-five years, when I commenced my writing career, I dabbled with themes of sentimentalism, deep romanticism and drama phantasma for the screen.  After attending Fordham University Law School and majoring in International Human Rights Law, I have seen my writing gain a socially conscious purview. I seek to make movies which call for social change, an adherence to the rule of law, and a plea for equality and tolerance. I am distinctly aware of the injustices, racism, bigotry and biases which dog our contemporary society and it is my goal to shed light on these inequities while refraining from preaching like a charlatan, pastor upon a soap box. I am not a politician nor a talk show host. I want to show and recount the truth which we face as marginalized folk, as those working on the periphery of time and slaving against the grain of what is expected, even if it is ruthless in cinematic presentation. Even if a spectator cannot fathom swallowing their meatloaf after what I have shown on the silver screen—and if that’s the effect of my work, I’ve moved a spirit to quit eating and start thinking with a cause for change settled in the crevices of the mind. My favorite author, James Baldwin, did not shy away from dragging the will and shrieking sound of defiance to the forefront to take swords up against discrimination and intolerance. My style has evolved to face the music but not to simply listen to the sound but to hear the words echoing in the halls of the heart, screaming for societal change and equitable justice. 

On set, the most important thing is:

On set, the most important aspect is to be cool, calm and collected. As a director, I seek to unleash effective convincing performances from my cast. I must be endearing and leisurely while at the same time I must be ready to crack a certain whip so that momentum is not lost. A director should be versatile, sensitive yet bold, a commander in chief but not a fool and eager to listen to suggestions—open to ideas. I believe a director should learn from the cast and crew by using soft words when needed, gentle persuasion where expected and brash domineering force when required, especially when seeking a momentous performance or when imprinting for cinematic posterity that once in a life time Gone with the Wind Love Scene shot atop of the emerald hill overlooking a field of chaos whist still awaiting paradise to march in and salvage that day for night shot on the set, before the director shouts: “Cut!” 

The project(s) you’re most proud of…

I am most profoundly proud of my film, Poor Liza, which starred Academy Award Nominee Ben Gazzara and Academy Award Winner, Lee Grant.  Although the sentimental tale revolves around a young peasant girl who is romanced and then deplorably abandoned by a callous nobleman in the 18th Century—it is a lamentable tale of how class struggles within the constraints of society conscript a true act of love to utter and insufferable futility. I was very proud that this film had won the Grand Prix Garnet Bracelet for Best Motion-Picture at the Gatchina Literature and Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia and that I was able to gift my beloved mother with this coveted film award at such an early stage in my film career. I am also significantly proud of my three stage-plays which were produced while I was under contract at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York.  “Love in the Eyes of Hope, Dies Last,” was an auto-biographical play which dealt with the hardships of immigration and assimilation.  “Coyote, Take Me There!” was a folkloric biblical musical which also revolved around the dislocation of refugees from Eastern Europe and the impoverished wise asylum seekers from Mexico and Latin American countries. “Defenses of Prague” was an Obie Nominated mystical play in verse which was about the legendary Golem of Prague coming face to face with the Roma of Prague set against the backdrop of the brutal invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviets in 1968. 

What are your short term and long-term career goals? 

To be perfectly candid, I do not hold long-term career goals. My late sister who passed at the tender age of eighteen and to whom I have dedicated practically all of my work in the theatre, had written in her diary that she was going to eat the most delicious Granny Smith apple on Saturday afternoon but she had passed on Friday.  I’ve learned not to make plans lest God holds other plans for me and for those around me. Perhaps God even snickers at my plans so I am resolved to adhere to short term career goals. I would like to make another socially conscious change seeking film within the next two years, should I live so long. It would also be lovely to work with some actors whom I thoroughly admire, such as Adrian Brody and Marisa Tomei. 

What are your upcoming projects?

At New York University, I had a professor who had taught a class on Vladimir Nabokov and the students were assigned to read practically each of his novels.  I was a young lady who was touched by the story of Mashenka which in my opinion served as a prelude to Nabokov’s infamous banned novel Lolita.  In Mashenka, a young man, recuperates from typhoid fever, clenched in the clutches of boredom and thus conjures up his ideal love—a girl whom he actually meets a month later. Mashenka is the love of his life. Nabokov describes the lass: “a girl with chestnut scythe in a black bow, burning eyes, a swath face and a rolling carted voice.” Once the protagonist, Ganin, catches a glimpse of this girl, he is instantly smitten with her much like the lewd character of Humbert Humbert was possessed and consumed by Lolita’s underage visage and licentious aura.  Mashenka and Lolita are primary examples of young girls who are victims of solipsism. The two young girls exist only in the sole minds of Ganin and Humbert Humbert as they appear as clip-on identities and not as real youthful ladies imbued with distinct individual characteristics. In a sense, these unfortunate girls are victims of a contrived perverse imagination. I am currently engaged in writing a screenplay revolving around Lolita’s perspective regarding Humbert Humbert in which I depict her every reaction to his haughty elicit sexual advances towards such a young girl.  I believe that as a woman I am equipped to ascertain and portray Lolita’s version of Humbert Humbert’s infatuation with a twelve-year old Dolores Haze and to express Lolita’s vision of this rather sick seduction of a pubescent girl. While the term “Lolita” has been sadly assimilated into our popular culture as a description of a young girl who is “precociously seduced….sans the wicked connotations of victimization,” I aim to prove on the contrary (drawing from a similarly situated experience) that Dolores Haze is indeed a victim and not a seductress, at least not a conscience one due to her obvious inexperience, fickle pre-teen posture, youth and fleeting innocence which is prone to serve as sensual prey of worldly educated men like Humbert Humbert. I feel that a film based on Lolita’s response to Humbert Humbert’s despicable physical and emotional advances may be timely in the era of meaningful social change movements seeking female empowerment while holding guilty men accountable for their horrendous acts against women, such as the #metoo movement demonstrates. I would also very much like to shoot an adaptation of my play, which premiered at the 13th Street Repertory Theatre, entitled, “The Blacklist,” which is a quirky yet prophetically poignant political satire about an afterlife party hosted by the Grim Reaper during our flamboyantly tumultuous, politically divisive times.  

https://newyorkmovieawards.com/interviews#ab80ec04-cea4-4d5c-a07a-2c379d5b847e

We have sublime news! Used and Borrowed Time is a winner in the Creation International Film Festival.

Please check out the in depth review of our film, below:

When I was asked to write a review for ​Used and Borrowed Time​,​ ​I read the synopsis and thought it sounded cool. It's a period piece and I happen to enjoy period pieces. It has a bit of a fantasy supernatural element. I like that too. Then I glanced at the run time... three hours and forty minutes! I about had a stroke. I double checked to see if it wasn't a Bollywood film. It isn't.

Once over my initial shock, I sat down and began to watch it and instantly several things became clear. For one, writer and director Sophia Romma is a strange bird... which is a good thing. She's also very progressive and takes a rock solid stance on big issues like racism, politics and religious hypocrisy.

All very good qualities. This lady doesn't pull punches, but for the faint of heart and those who shy away from dark humor and profanity, this may be a bit gritty and won't be your cup of tea. Thirdly, which explains the lengthy runtime, Romma is a playwright and this film has the stage written all over it. From lengthy monologues and scene dynamics that often run the clock, to over the top performances and lyrical sounding dialogue, it is a theater production caught on film.

Don't get me wrong. I think the lady is brilliant and daring, because taking something tailored for the stage and MacGyvering it to the screen doesn't always work. ​Cats​ is a good example. The question is, does this film work? I've just finished watching it and although there was a lot I loved, there was some I didn't and I still haven't reached a verdict. The truth is, what works for one may not for another. There really is no right or wrong... just taste. So, this review is just one man’s opinion.

Eva Gold, a blind woman in the twilight of her years, encounters a cast of magical and kooky characters at an enchanted country fair. After gorging herself on apple pie, she is magically transported back to her youth where she revisits a past love and the horrific night when he was suddenly snatched from her. The concept is wonderful and the flavor is captured by a

tremendously talented cast. Emily Seibert plays the young version of Eva and Clas Duncan is her black civil rights warrior boyfriend, Steadroy Johnson. Both do a great job as the biracial couple, alone in the woods and full of passion, debating whether to make love right there in the forest. The clichés and stereotypes are amazing. Clas actually knocks it out of the park, fearing retaliation if caught with a white girl in a small town in the Deep South. The young lovers sneak into a shed and are caught by a family of rednecks who put them through hell.

The family matriarch, Blanche Woods (played by Maureen O'Connor) is spectacular as a bible thumping racist with tunnel vision. Her brother, Wade (played by Grant Morenz) takes things beyond most comfort levels as a sadistic gay rapist. Blanche’s slow witted son, Jed (played by Gavin Rohrer), is also a rapist, though a conflicted one.

The family forces the couple into their house at gun point and debates whether to rape, murder or release them, all while remembering to say grace, exchange gifts and enjoy Christmas dinner. Constantly at odds and threatening to kill one another, a lone voice of reason and bearing a glimmer of humanity arrives in the form of Blanche’s eldest daughter and Jed’s sister, Lorna, who is visiting from up north. Lorna (played by Alice Kelly Bahike), while a bigot and hypocrite herself, pleads on deaf ears for their release. "It's the charitable thing to do.” An interesting note, Alice also plays Kitty O'Neill, the carnie who baked the magic pies that send Eva back in time. I only picked up on that while scanning the credits.

At three plus hours, I could go on for pages about all the clever references and buried treasures tucked away in the story. The writing is solid, though very stylized. As I said, I felt I was watching a Broadway play. The dialogue is full of rhymes and ‘schtick’ with lots of period references. It works, but for many, it could be too much and get tiresome very quickly. There's nothing worse than a film that pushes too hard. ​Used and Borrowed Time​ teeters on the edge.

To be completely honest, it felt like two entirely different films to me. There's the present, where Eva encounters the kooky carnies at the fair where she battles the sorcerous pastry chef that sends her back in time and then the scenes that take place in 1960's Alabama. The two timelines look and feel very different with the scenes at the fair appearing a little small and staged.

The film opens with some sweeping aerial shots of a bustling amusement park with rides and a crowd. We then cut to passersby stopping at a few kiosks. We still hear the noise from the crowd, but we lose those reference shots tying it all together and suddenly we're left with two or three people on screen at a time. There are no reverse angles showing crowds in the background. Those opening shots just aren't enough. You need multiple angles and geography to maintain the illusion. Understood, in a theatrical production, you do your best with limited space and much is left to the imagination. With cinema, you can create a much deeper world with multiple angles.

As well, the dialogue felt a little hokey and forced. Sophia Romma makes an appearance, stopping by a fortune teller and saying, "Lot's of nice things you're selling here, like these candied apples. Wow... how much? $2, huh... that's reasonable. Those look delicious!" A minute or two later when Eva and her granddaughter are strolling through the park, "I'm glad you've taken me here, the fair, this festival, it's your past... it's so awe inspiring," Romma says, disguised in a mask, this time portraying Eva's granddaughter. The opening sequence just doesn't match the same level of excellence as the rest of the film. I get it's supposed to be a little hokey and over the top. Sometimes that works and other times, not so much. The use of computer graphics to add to the flavor of magic with a snake and giant cat and circus strongman appearing from nowhere was very cool!

For those period scenes where Eva is sent to the 1960's, the movie shifts gears and things instantly ramp up. I won't give all the credit to the talent because, in my opinion, the acting in this film is top notch across the board.

I don't think it's a case of one group being better than another. They all worked with what was given. Sometimes, the dialogue was spot on. Other times, I felt it was too hammy or in need of tweaking. Again, this is just an opinion. I personally think the script was close to genius, just slightly off the mark in places.

The cinematography is great. Vladzimir Taukachou knows his stuff. The fair scenes are missing those needed reference shots to give credibility, but I don't think I'm telling him anything he doesn't know. Again, we work within the limitations we're given and I suspect this was shot the way it was by design. The audio, for the most part, is great. The voices are clean and mostly don’t sound ‘affected’. Alex Voronin and his team did a great job. Lighting is also excellent. Yani Kouros keeps things clean and natural looking, which must've been time consuming with much of the film taking place in low light. As well, color grading is uniform and consistent. Good job by Kirill Vlassov.

In my opinion, Kevin MacLeod's score contributes beautifully to the mood and pacing of the film, providing tension in all the right spots and adding to the dark comedic atmosphere carried throughout much of the film. Very nicely done.

The editing is solid, but this is where taste and preference comes into play. Arthur Karaulov and Sergio Voronin did a great job bouncing us from past to present and maintaining solid continuity and flow throughout. But as a filmmaker myself, I would've chopped a lot of the repeat and run-on dialogue. In the intro, there is just too much chatter that doesn't drive the story. This is a monster of a film. It's a stage production without the ‘vibe’ one gets from being at a live performance. For a film to keep the

viewer riveted to their seats things have to move at a faster pace. We all love ​The French Connection​ and ​Deer Hunter​ epics from the 1970's, but 2020 sensibilities have changed cinema and what people are willing to sit through. There was just a lot of repetition and unnecessary dialogue, in my opinion. I also noticed camera angles that lingered too long and locations

that seemed to be shot from only one angle. Camera movement builds intrigue and connects the viewer to what's happening on screen.

There is nothing more difficult in this world than to take an idea, put it to paper and then seek out a group of misfits willing to help you put your vision to screen. It's an agonizingly long and often lonely process. Sophia Romma has an extensive list of credits in the entertainment world, no doubt, but this was her first time in the driver’s seat for a feature. I think she's an incredibly gifted writer and director. This is truly a wonderful film and I believe I laughed and cringed at all the right spots. Amazing things will follow this film and I can't wait to see what Sophia comes up with next.

Brian Lutes November 22, 2020

facebook.com/brian.lutes​ or @lutes492

www.creationiff.com

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https://www.fullshotcinemag.com

‘Used and Borrowed Time’ is set during the turbulent 1960’s, in segregated Alabama and based on an unfortunate sadistic racist incident from American history. With numerous racism and antisemitism occurrences happening across the world, this story is as relevant as ever.

In the film Eva, an aging eccentric blind woman, is phantasmagorically transported to her past.There she observes her younger self suffering the tyranny unleashed by a perverted, merciless white supremacist family. Witnessing the clan raging a vengeful retaliation upon her ill-fated love affair with a poetic African American civil rights advocate, she is forced to beg for her life.

Since the film involves magical realism, in some cases old Eva is able to interfere and assist her younger self. In other times, she is able to replace her younger self and expose her current self to those around her. She is reminded of how significant her love story was, but also how painful some parts of it were. For example, after making love for the first time, her boyfriend realizes she is Jewish and struggles to accept her. Then, while trying to overcome their differences, they are caught by the white family whose property they sit in. The white supremacist family members take law into their own hands.They decide to punish the couple for being on their premises, but mainly and truly, the family punishes the couple for being African American and Jewish.As the film progresses it touches on issues such as identity, religion, color, sexual orientation, rape and murder.

It is not a simple film to watch, but it’s an important one. It doesn’t shy away from harsh truths, and unveils the hatred that lied, and in some places still lies, in today’s world. 

I think the film could have benefitted from being shorter and tighter, so the buildup to key moments would have been more suspenseful. The music helped enhance the drama, and the acting was entertaining at times, and gut wrenching at others.  I’m not sure the VFX did the film justice, but I enjoyed the fantasy concept it displayed.

The director, Sophia Romma, is an experienced screenwriter and director. In her portfolio, you will find the award-winning film ‘Poor Liza’, which she co-wrote and produced, starring Emmy winner and three-time Golden Globe winning actor, Ben Gazzara, and two-time Emmy and Academy award-winning actress, Lee Grant. Romma also wrote and directed various successful screenplays and films such as ‘Call Girls for Hire: The Sex Slave Trade Epidemic in Eastern Europe’,‘Underneath Her Make-Up’,which unveiled the stigmatized and hounded LGBTQ community in India,‘The Frozen Zone’, which sheds light on the supernatural healing powers of ancient shamanism and its infinite wisdom, and many more…

In this film, Romma states she wanted to expose the horrid and common practice of shameful racism and segregation in the 1960’s. At the height of the protests against segregation laws and inequity, she documented an incident that occurred in Birmingham, Alabama. This moment in time was recounted by a son of slaves. According to the director, he poured his heart out about this true bitter tale where unspeakable crimes were committed against an innocent Jewish blind girl and her African American soul mate.

This film manages to beautifully deliver an important message while remaining artistic and unique. It is Romma’s hope that this film shall serve as a reminder of the evil that can happen, and as a beacon of hope in the fight for human rights, gender parity, and equality.

Cult Critic

“There’s not a poor jew. They control media, show business, airlines”. "Chinese are everywhere, taking everything". These are two of the lines of the beginning of the experimental movie USED AND BORROWED TIME by Sophia Romma.

The imprint is therefore clear since the very beginning. Racism and bias are the themes of the movie, eviscerated through a deep plot that tells the story of the blind Eva Gold (portrayed as young by the very good Emily Seibert and as old by the amazing Cam Kornman).

Eva is a Jew that as a young girl fell in love with an African American young boy back in the sixties, during the segregation laws. When she is around 70 years old, she travels back in time and meets herself right during her love story.  

The writer and director Sophia Romma jumps back and forth in the tale using a bridge that links two historical periods but that is both times compromised by racism, whether it's about Jews or  African Americans, or Chinese people. But she never leads the audience too far away from the sets that she’s decided to use. This choice provides an atmosphere of claustrophobia that compels the audience to stay tight on the words, on the racist, deliberately awful, lines that the antagonists pronounce. Even the unusual length of the movie seems on this goal. Intent totally and successfully achieved.

It might sound like a regular drama movie, but the use of illustrations that appear on the screen unexpectedly, the length, and the stationary direction and filmography, makes it definitely an experimental work, as the director and writer herself said.

So the writing and the acting are the most important compartments and they did not fail. Besides the two protagonists that we’ve already cited, we urge to mention the amazing Grant Morenz, who portrays Wade Woods, an unbearable and racist uncle.

Also incredible is the job made by Alex Voronin for the sound, that doesn’t fail once, despite the very long length of the movie.

There’s not a real soundtrack, but an amazing band (Queen Ilise, Gabriel Lawson, Travis Milner, Larry Ross, King Beat) that walks the audience during the story, almost like if it was an external spectator of the pain of the actors. 

The warm and perfect voice of Queen Ilise caresses the characters kindly and represents an additional element that seals this movie as an experimental work. 

Directed by Sophia Romma

USED AND BORROWED TIME is an experimental film directed by Sophia Romma.  

This three and a half hours film is divided into two parts although  this separation does not sanction a change of story or a time jump, but  rather seems to recall the end of the first act of a theatre play. In  fact, the whole structure of the film is very theatrical. 

The direction,  especially for the part that concerns the moment in which the  protagonist travels through time and reaches her past, is purposely  static: We can see a dining table, a barn, the wood, and the scene  revolves especially around the actors. 

The cinematography also  contributes to this research and to this intent. Adding a theatrical  signature to the work is also the presence of the orchestra led by the  beautiful voice of Queen Ilise, who engages in various pieces,  representing the only soundtrack of almost the entire film. 

The story  takes place in Alabama, it's inspired by a real episode that was told to  the director and tells the life of a blind Jewish woman who travels  from the present to her past. 

She there reaches her 20-year-old self and  the love of her life, an African American young man who dreamed about  the end to segregation laws (we are in the 60s) but will have to clash  with a family of racist and classist white Americans. So the woman, who  too has been and still is a victim of racism and prejudice as a Jew (not  only in the past but also in a present now far from the end of the  Second World War), will live twice her nightmare. 

The author defines her  work as an experimental film and it's actually difficult, as a viewer,  to be able to insert it within any already known category of film genre.  In addition to the theatricality of the film, in fact, the duration is  not a choice among the most popular in recent years. 

There are also some  illustrations (especially in the first part) that participate in the  story in a metaphorical way and represent an external point of view. 

Therefore a new and, indeed, experimental element. If Romma's work had  to be labeled into a specific genre, I would think of a horror movie  that uses words instead of images to scare the audience. In many of the  phrases acted, especially by the actors who play the racist American  family members, you get the same reaction that you can have in front of  the crudest of horror films. It is the concepts that bleed and scare,  not some part of the human body, and it's even scarier. There's no room  for any "politically correct" kind of thing, and that's exactly what we  liked. 

A special mention goes to the costume design department  (curated by Silvana Adamo and Dara Ponzo) and to the leading actresses  Emily Seibert, who plays the young Eva Gold, and Cam Kornman, who plays  Eva Gold in the present.

Dr. Romma is the author of fourteen stage-plays, produced Off-Off-Broadway/Off-Broadway, three of which were produced at La MaMa E.T.C. Her play, “The Past Is Still Ahead” which she wrote and directed ran at the Cherry Lane Theatre, at the Midtown International Film Festival and toured Montauk, London, Moscow, Montreal, and Seoul. The Negro Ensemble Company presented “The Mire” at the Cherry Lane Theatre, heralded by the New York Times for “grinding down stubborn cultural borders with love’s symphony.” Romma’s “Cabaret Émigré” was lauded by The Villager for: “Delving deep into the dislocated émigré’s soul in erotic quantum verse.” Romma graduated from Tisch School of the Arts, earning her B.F.A. from the Dramatic Writing Program and her M.F.A. from the Dramatic Writing and Cinema Studies), holds a Ph.D. in Philology from Maxim Gorky Literature Institute and a Masters of Law from Fordham University School of Law. She directed plays by Leslie Lee, August Wilson, and Austin Phillips at the Schomburg Center, taught Playwrighting and Screenwriting at the Frederick Douglas Creative Art Center, and The Art of Absurdist Theatre Directing at the Mayakovski Academic Art Theatre. She also taught The Art of Narrative Screenwriting and Film History at the New York Film Academy and Cinematography at VGIK (the legendary Russian State University of Cinematography). Romma served as the Literary Manager of the Negro Ensemble Company for over five years. She is the Producing Artistic Director of Garden of the Avant-Garde Film and Theatrical Foundation, dedicated to achieving gender parity in theatre and fostering peace through performance art. Currently, she is the Human Rights Foreign Policy/Extremism Fellow at Human Rights First. www.gardenoftheavantgarde.com.

In an effort to shed light on an all too horrid and common practice of shameful racism and segregation in the 1960s, during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement--I embarked upon the journey of documenting an incident that occurred in Birmingham, Alabama during the conflagration of segregation. This horrific historical incident that sparked deep-rooted interest and spurred me to research this momentous moment in time was recounted by the dignified educated son of slaves who worked as a chef on the Amtrak train which had transported my grandmother and me to Alabama from New York during Halloween, once upon decades ago. The chef extraordinaire had cooked up the most delectable rosemary baked aromatic lamb chops and collard greens, as he poured his heart out about this truly sad tale. This deeply psychological documentary drama captures the narrative of the chef's young cousin, a civil rights leader, and poetic soul who had expired way before his time at the hands of a clan of heartless white supremacists. The unspeakable crimes committed against an innocent blind girl and her African American soul mate is a tragedy thatunfolds in my drama phantasma. I hope that this film shall serve as a reminder of the evil that can descend upon innocent spirits seeking to change our wounded world for the better and as a beacon in the plight for human rights, parity, and equality as one nation and one people harbored under the unified multi-colored and multi-national blanket of universal hope, guided by a forgiving, understanding Lord who made Us as One.

We spoke to the director of "Used and Borrowed Time" regarding her film.

Used and Borrowed Time is set during the 1960s in Alabama. How did the writing of your film start with the script?

I have dedicated twenty-five years of my life to the burgeoning vibrant halls of the theatre. Writing stage-plays imbued with the language of the Gods in verse has whetted my insatiable appetite for the ardor that may only be expressed in cinematic verse. I am indebted to Italian Neo-realism and to the intimately philosophical existential spirit of the films of Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Cesare Zavattini, and Federico Fellini. I commenced upon a journey to write a short play inspired by a true lamentable and horrific event in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960s, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. My American mentors were of African American descent, namely the Obie Winner and Tony-nominated playwright, Colonel Leslie Lee who directed three of my plays at the legendary La MaMa Experimental Theatre, the celebrated Ellen Stewart, (“Mama” who had founded La MaMa and with whom I developed my experimental stage-plays while living in her artist’s villa in Spoleto, Italy), the indelible Charles Weldon, the Director of the Negro Ensemble Company who had directed two of my plays Off-Broadway, and my professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, the genius Spike Lee. I have vicariously lived through their experiences of racism and intolerance. I am an émigré and a refuge from the former Soviet Union and know all too well what it is like to live under the threat of religious and ethnic prosecution—under the scrutiny of a sickle. I began writing a short play commissioned by The Players at New York’s Gramercy Park South, where it was performed in September of 2019. The play shocked the audience with its depiction of a starkly unforgettable moment in time that shamed our past. The sadism and blatant racism unleashed by this merciless white supremacist backwoods family living a solitary existence in Birmingham Alabama brought the audience to a rather frantic state, as a lost young interracial couple faced the bullwhip from a bigoted rant and a rally of threatening pitchforks, while they were captured by this warped religion toting clan who truly believed in their own version of righteousness; which in itself is a paradox and a twist in the sobriety of faith. 

The Golden Age of Italian cinema illuminated the complex romanticism of the Italian psyche and the squalid conditions of everyday life, including the imprint of poverty, governmental oppression, injustice, inequity, and desperation. I am a disciple of poetic realism and Christian humanism. 

The Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Alabama is such a momentous poignant movement in the American historic landscape. Since I am an International Human Rights Attorney and serve on the International Human Rights Committee at the New York City Bar Association, spearheading the Criminal Justice and Racial Justice Project, I have conducted a great deal of research into this city of segregation. Birmingham, Alabama was, in 1963, one of the most blatantly segregated cities in the United States. In reading about the fifty unsolved racially motivated bombings between 1945 and 1962, and how the city had earned the nickname of “Bombingham,” I grew socially conscious of my duty to recount this sad true tale in a drama phantasma staccato quantum verse. My research on the events that transpired in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960s led me to learn of a neighborhood that was shared by white and black families which had undergone such numerous violent attacks that it was called "Dynamite Hill.” Even African American churches of sacred worship were attacked during the conflagration of segregation in the 1960s. Brimming with all of these tender volatile issues, I tackled the feat of transforming my short play into a screenplay and then the deities of creativity overcame my soul; captivated my imagination which manifested itself in the labor of expressionist cinematic love—of 180 pages. I view this film as a manifesto calling for social change which has been a long time coming. 

What inspired you to make this film?

In an effort to shed light on an all too horrid and common practice of shameful racism and segregation in the 1960s, and amid the unjust enactment of anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement—I embarked upon the journey of documenting an incident that occurred in Birmingham, Alabama at the peak of protests against segregation laws and inequity. This horrific historical incident that sparked deep-rooted interest and spurred me to research this momentous moment in time was recounted by the dignified educated son of slaves who worked as a chef on the Amtrak train which had transported my grandmother and I, once upon my past, to Alabama from New York, during Halloween. This humble chef extraordinaire had cooked up the most delectable rosemary baked aromatic lamb chops and collard green, and while the train tooted onwards with full steam ahead, he poured his heart out about this true bitter tale of tender ill-fated love. This lashing psychological docu-drama welled tears in my eyes as the tale captured the narrative of the chef’s young cousin, a civil rights leader, and poetic soul who had expired way before his time at the hands of a clan of heartless white supremacists. The unspeakable crimes committed against an innocent Jewish blind girl and her African American soul mate is a tragedy that unfolds in my experimental drama phantasma. I pray that this film shall serve as a reminder of the evil that can descend upon innocent spirits seeking to change our wounded world for the better and as a beacon of hope in the plight for human rights, gender parity, and equality as we stand united—one nation under the unified multi-colored and multi-national blanket of universal hope: guided by a forgiving understanding Lord who made Us walk upon this earth as One. 

How did you find the cast and crew?

I believe that painting on the cinematic canvas with images is the very essence of this unique craft. I yearned to work with the creativity of the Zen, the mystical, and the magical—since much of my screenplay was written in a fantastical trance, especially when the Older Eva Gold is transported in phantasmagoric style to revisit her torturous Alabama past and relive her ill-fated love affair. I was fortunate to strike the fancy of an Estonian Film Production Company well-versed in the aesthetic of creating art-house independent motion-pictures. Hence, although even while filming, my cinematographer who is from Belarus, worried about the controversial aspects of the film; I was indeed grateful to be working with such an eclectic international ensemble from Eastern Europe. My brilliant Estonian post-production team was well aware of my reverence for 20th Centuries master film artisans like Renoir, Bergman, Welles, Parajanov, Tarkovsky, Bresson, and Pasolini. I am a true cinephile so I explained that I desired to recreate the special aesthetic of Bresson. Cinema, naturally, is not simply filmed theatre. I explained that I wanted to create a novel quantum verse language and apply that language to film. My crew was asked to fashion this new potpourri of theatrical imagery that could express a character’s inner state, spirit, and mood in wild bursts of cinematic emotional expressionism. Much like Bresson, I wanted to show raw faces, depict real emotions not demonstrate fabricated acting techniques. Hence, after being in theatre for over two decades, I had amassed an entire arsenal of theatre actors to choose from in searching for the right fit. I also turned to Backstage for aid in casting. Finally, I worked with my longtime casting director of the theatre. She is very precise and scrupulous regarding casting and she is keenly aware of the importance of proper casting on the success of the film. Together we gathered a symbiosis of faces and acting techniques befitting of the lyrical tone and leitmotif of my film. Cinematography is a cogent universally captivating form of cinematic writing. The visual medium must reflect and compliment the written word. It is a delicate balance, surrounded by the haunting of space and time which I feel was beautifully represented by my talented cast and crew. 

What kind of impact does your film have on society?

I hope that the impact of Used and Borrowed Time will not merely be a philosophically psychological one but the film will resonate as an impactful visceral visually stimulating experience seeking and calling for social change, tolerance, and universal acceptance of our differences as human beings. After all, the audience is immersed in the battlefield of false prophets, exposed prima facie to fascist motives, conscripted to tango with manic passionate love, to witness perversion and to experience the inner conflict of humanity as men and women struggle with self-identity, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity and a serious culture clash. The fact that the past is still ahead and that we should never forget the treacherous acts of that past is brought to the forefront in this motion-picture. It is my wish that the lingering effect of Used and Borrowed Time, does indeed loom over impressionable souls. There is of course an austere reality to the tragic effects of racism and bigotry which I have unveiled as it courses through the cinematic veins of this film. However, this invasion and intrusion into the love of an interracial couple who walked this earth shackled by predestined biases are juxtaposed with the lyricism and mysticism of a magical phantasma—purposely glossing over the unbearable tragic events that I feel will visually linger for eternity with those who unpretentiously care about humanity and the search for equality for all. 

Where do you plan to do further screenings for your film?

Being an art-house independent and an experimental film, I feel that this movie is most suited to avant-garde festivals; festivals which promote human rights and justice principles as well as support the cinematic paths of female directors who are often globally underrepresented. I am entertaining international film festival screenings as well as a world premiere. Naturally, I do hope that the film will be shown to an American audience, in American theatres lest we risk the burden of forgetting our treacherous past and so that we can learn from the terrible unjust acts of our ancestors. It is further my hope that this film shall premiere in Italy, France, Western, and Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle East. I do realize that as much as the title of my film signifies that we all live our lives out beneath the shadowy undertones of used and borrowed time, contemporary audience members perhaps may not be privy to the glitter and glamour with a pale shade of death presented in Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece film of four hours running time, such as Ludwig. A love affair that is destined to doom and which is placed to the test by fanatically religious white supremacists is not your ordinary run of mill late night date night film. Yet I have hope that this niche film will indeed find its meaningful appreciative audience and that my plea for social change and justice may be heard among the divisive political storms looming above our war-torn horizons. 

You also hold a PH.D. degree and teach. If you had to choose between filmmaking and teaching academically, which one would you choose and why?

This is the type of interview question that makes a sensitive soul weep. I do hold a Ph.D. in Philology and Russian Literature with a minor in French from the Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow, Russia. I have taught the craft of screenwriting and the history of American film at the New York Film Academy, instructed advanced playwriting and screenwriting, writing the memoir, and theatre directing workshops at the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, which was the most rewarding experience. I have had the pleasure of teaching Cinema Studies at McGill University (in the Slavic Department) and I currently teach College Writing at the New York School of Applied Sciences. I must admit that being a professor and imparting my knowledge upon young, talented, and eager to learn students is a momentous delight and I revel in the academic arena. I care about each student, attempt to hone their creative writing skills and try to give them the tools to develop a screenplay or a play, instructing them on the ancient principles of drama. It would be extremely difficult to choose between teaching academically and filmmaking, however, while I remain dedicated to academia and believe that the youth is our future—I cannot forfeit my lifelong dream and commitment to writing screenplays and to the art of shooting a film. I have aspired to develop my distinct voice in the arts and to be heard, cinematically speaking, since I arrived upon the shores of American soil as a child and had been mesmerized by the Star Wars Trilogy. There is nothing on this good earth that compares to the enthralling glow of the motion pictures and the flames of human life in which cinema unfolds before an audience. I would be obliged to choose the act of making movies for as long as God grants me the gift of treading upon this earth. 

What is it like to blend academic work and filmmaking? 

I have gained so much inspiration, knowledge, and wisdom from my gifted students over my twenty-year teaching career. I often feel that professorship at the university level and in instructing specific workshops for screenwriting and filmmaking engagement is indeed immeasurably challenging. By the same token, as my students learn from my expertise in the art and craft of dramatic writing, cinema studies, and shooting films; I am blessed to engage with my students in a manner which allows me to cast my investigative nets even farther and to gain wisdom from young inquisitive souls—bridging generations through the cohesive medium of film. 

Do you recommend film schools to emerge filmmakers who would like to break into the industry?

I will be quite frank in responding to this question by stating that I do not believe that one can simply become a playwright, a screenwriter, or a filmmaker by attending film school without possessing a desire and passion for excelling in this fine art field. The need to make film must consume one’s very being and serve as a conduit between the Goddess of Inspiration, fascination, and talent for the medium. The film is a special beast and one must strive to recount a story through the lens of the camera, paint with words, and move spectators to tears by showing heightened true to lie emotions. If filmmaking is one’s unfaltering passion, then attending film school will aid the aspirational goals of the dreamer and the artist. From personal experience in attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from the dramatic writing and film programs, I was able to hone my skills in screenwriting, playwriting, and film directing. Classes were taught by award-winning industry professionals amid the dreamy ambiance and freedom of Greenwich Village—a bohemian paradise reminiscent of liberated picturesque Europe. Spike Lee, Marty Scorsese, Venable Herndon, Colonel Leslie Lee, Avery O. Williams, and Richard Wesley were among my illustrious mentors and I have been able to achieve wonders in theatre and in a film under their tutelage. Having stated that, I nonetheless feel that it is indeed possible to achieve one’s dream of making films without attending film school at all—it may just be the luck of the draw, being in the right place at the right time and fueling one’s ardent talent with the realization of making a film in actuality via active hands-on persistence and with the support of monetary funds, of course. One can persevere and oversee a film project from its fledgling nascent state by bringing it to fruition simply through an act of courageous ambition and savvy business sense without ever stepping foot into a film school classroom. 

What were some of the challenges of making your film?

Cinema is a pivotal medium in drawing audiences from different backgrounds into a magical yet uncertain space. I aimed to expose a world of diversity in gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class, and religion in my film to a certain measure. I am not a film studio therefore my production and post-production teams were maxed out to the limit of their capabilities while working on this motion-picture. We attempted against all strenuous odds (dealing with a constrictive tight budget, inclement weather, stringing together a cast from various parts of the United States, and assembling a crew from Estonia) to better reflect the real sectors of society. The production was nonetheless riddled with unexpected surprises and a brutal frigid winter did not help shooting the outdoor scenes. Most of the film is in fact shot outdoors among swaying reeds and open wild terrain. Then we were all hit collectively by a pandemic as the threat of Covid-19 placed unbearable constraints on post-production since my crew returned to Estonia, forced to execute post-production via Zoom meetings in an unsteady virtual realm devoid of the intimacy, immediacy, and efficacy of working face to face on editing and skillful montage. Still Used and Borrowed Time is a testament to the countless people who toiled endless hours and brought the miracle of this human tale to the discriminate palate of versatile cinematic images. My cast and crew owned the set. I am grateful for their faith in this film and their commitment to upholding the important message that its motif aims to deliver, despite the challenges of making an independent, experimental art-house film under these challenging conditions. 

What is the next project you are going to work on?

At New York University, I had a professor who had taught a class on Vladimir Nabokov, and the students were assigned to read practically each of his novels. I was a young lady who was touched by the story of Mashenka which in my opinion served as a prelude to Nabokov’s infamous banned novel Lolita. In Mashenka, a young man recuperates from typhoid fever, clenched in the clutches of boredom, and thus conjures up his ideal love—a girl whom he actually meets a month later. Mashenka is the love of his life. Nabokov describes the lass: “a girl with a chestnut scythe in a black bow, burning eyes, a swath face, and a rolling carted voice.” Once the protagonist, Ganin, catches a glimpse of this girl, he is instantly smitten with her much like the lewd character of Humbert Humbert was possessed and consumed by Lolita’s underage visage and aura. Mashenka and Lolita are primary examples of young girls who are victims of solipsism. The two young girls exist only in the sole minds of Ganin and Humbert Humbert as they appear as clip-on identities and not as real youthful ladies imbued with distinct individual characteristics. In a sense, these unfortunate girls are victims of a contrived imagination. I am currently engaged in writing a screenplay revolving around Lolita’s perspective regarding Humbert Humbert in which I depict her every reaction to his haughty sexual advances towards such a young girl. I believe that as a woman I am equipped to ascertain and portray Lolita’s version of Humbert Humbert’s infatuation with a twelve-year-old Dolores Haze and to express Lolita’s vision of this rather perverse seduction of a pubescent girl. While the term “Lolita” has been sadly assimilated into our popular culture as a description of a young girl who is “precociously seduced….sans the wicked connotations of victimization,” I aim to prove on the contrary (drawing from a similarly situated experience) that Dolores Haze is indeed a victim and not a seductress, at least not a conscience one due to her obvious inexperience, fickle pre-teen posture, youth and fleeting innocence which is prone to serve as sensual prey of worldly educated men like Humbert Humbert. I feel that a film based on Lolita’s response to Humbert Humbert’s uncomfortable physical and emotional advances may be times in the era of meaningful social change movements seeking female empowerment while holding guilty men accountable for their deplorable acts against women, such as the #metoo movement. 

https://www.romacinemamagazine.com/post/_used

Set during the turbulent 1960’s, in segregated Alabama, and based on a lamentably sadistic racist incident in history--an aging eccentric actress is phantasmagorically transported to her past as she relives the tyranny unleashed by a perverted, merciless white supremacist family--witnessing the clan raging a vengeful retaliation upon her ill-fated love affair with a poetic African American civil rights advocate.