TIFF 2010 Q&A: ‘MODRA’ Director Ingrid Veninger

Ingrid Veninger’s latest film, MODRA, is a very personal project about young love, friendship, and self-discovery that not only stars her daughter, Hallie, but also took Veninger back home to Modra, a small town in Slovakia, where her entire family pitched in to help on the picture.

CityNews.ca spoke with Veninger about the film and how her family felt about being catapulted into the world of making movies. Read our Q&A below.

Brian McKechnie: What inspired the idea for MODRA?

Ingrid Veninger: I was born in Bratislava and we came [to Canada] in 1968; my father was a political prisoner so when the communists came back we had to leave pretty fast. I was two years old and there was really no contact with the family in Slovakia for a great many years. I went back for the first time with my father when I was 17. I was reflecting on that time because I have a 17-year-old daughter in the house. That crossroads time of life: not only meeting this extended family for the first time but also going to Europe for the first time, longing to have a boyfriend, everyone asking me what I wanted to do with my life after finishing high school and I had no idea but felt like I should know. It was this heightened sense of confusion and desire and all of those things.

BM: Did you write the script thinking you wanted this to be a family affair?

IV: I have always wanted to shoot something in Slovakia ever since that first visit. So I proposed the idea to my daughter and when she said yes it was a huge thing. She’s never acted before, no one in the film has acted before, and to go back there and make the film with my daughter and all of my extended family is a once in a lifetime [experience].

BM: Was it frustrating for you or your family working together?

IV: There was definitely tension. I don’t think anyone in the film really had a sense of what was going to be involved. We were shooting a hundred per cent on location, mostly outside. It was really hot, we had a one-man camera department and a one-man sound department, things take time and there was a lot of repetition so people would get frustrated. I was inventing a lot of things on the fly too, which is the way I wanted to work. We went with a script and I had my editor assemble footage every day and then at night I would look at stuff and react to it. I would change things and in the morning I would tell everyone the new plan and they had to be flexible. The best stuff came when I wasn’t necessarily executing some predetermined idea and certainly my actors felt a little bit off-centre and out of control. That was when the best work came.

BM: Do you think Hallie will want to act again?

IV: She had said during the shoot that she was thinking she would never, ever want to act in a film again. But now, after a bit of reflection, she’s really open to doing it again. This is her first time acting and now that we’re going to travel to other festivals, it’s perfect in terms of this gap year she’s taking before going to university. I don’t know what’s going to come out of it for her. It might change her life and send her in directions she can’t even imagine right now.

BM: How did you prepare your family in Slovakia that you were coming to film a movie with them?

IV: You can describe the process all you want but until someone has been through it, they have no idea. And [a film set] is a bit of a war zone. I prepared them and sent them drafts of the script and then went to Modra for about three weeks and read the script to them, scouted locations, and did rehearsals with them.

BM: Did you have any challenges with the language barrier?

IV: I speak Slovak on the level of about a six-year-old. And my vocabulary is very limited. I would explain everything in Slovak and then in English and things would get lost in translation. As a director you want to be clear as possible, but I had to be even clearer because I was operating in two languages. All of that was frustrating. I would say something very fast and then translate it into English and say ‘action’ and my Slovak family would tell me they didn’t understand anything I had just said.

BM: Has your family seen the film yet?

IV: I showed them a rough cut and they all seemed quite happy with it. It’s been a huge thing for my mother to see her brother because they haven’t seen each other for over 15 years. I’m going to bring five of the Slovak family cast members over for the festival. They have never been to Canada before and they are going to see Toronto explode. And then in November we’ll go to Bratislava to the festival there for the international premiere. I would love for my 96-year-old great-aunt, who hasn’t been outside for about two and half years, to see the film on the big screen.

BM: Did you have any difficulties getting access to shoot in Slovakia?

IV: My mother’s youngest brother is a musician and he’s really famous in Slovakia. He’s had that band [that plays at the end of the film] for about 30 years. It would be like saying I was Neil Young’s daughter and I wanted to shoot in the Gladstone [Hotel in Toronto]. My other uncle who owns the ranch in the film is pretty famous in that area too. The entire village goes to that ranch and it’s like a huge centre for kids and a lot of people work there. And, of course, we were a really small crew; it was three us parading around the city and most people saw us as making this little student or family film that no one will ever see.

BM: How important is it for you to be premiering at TIFF?

IV: It’s huge. I have a small film that’s low-budget and self-financed with the help of Telefilm Canada. It doesn’t have [big-name] stars and I don’t have a distributor or a sales agent. If I didn’t get into TIFF, you would not know the film existed. Now there’s a chance for me to maybe get television distribution, a chance to have Canadian and international industry eyes on the film. While it’s not the end of the world if you make a Canadian film and it doesn’t get into TIFF, it still feels that way. It’s a leverage and a springboard to get some revenue so I can make another feature film next year.

BM: What are you working on next?

IV: I’m in the middle of writing a script based on a novel by Kathy Kacer called the Diary of Laura’s Twin. It’s actually the first time I’ve optioned a book since [Margaret Atwood’s] Cat’s Eye when I was 19 so I’m excited about doing an adaptation and starting from a book. Then I’ll be writing something completely original which will have a slightly bigger budget. It’s going to be with adults and professional actors and will be very sexy, something different from MODRA and [my last film] Only.

MODRA plays at TIFF on Wednesday, September 15 at 8:30 p.m., Friday, September 17 at 2:15 p.m., and Saturday, September 18 at 5:15 p.m. Check the full schedule at tiff.net/filmsandschedules.

brian.mckechnie@citynews.rogers.com

Top image: Alexander Gammal, Ingrid Veninger, and Hallie Switzer on the set of MODRA. Courtesy pUNK films.