With a fantastic cast led by Willa Fitzgerald (The Fall of the House of Usher/Scream: The TV Series) and Kyle Gallner (Smile/Scream) and the stamp of approval from writing legend Stephen King, then it goes without saying that Strange Darling should instantly be on your watchlist. Following a serial killer, we see a night full of twists and turns and unpredictable events that will have you hooked from the first chapter. The film has its international premiere at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on August 24th. STARBURST catches up with director/writer JT Mollner (Outlaws and Angels) and cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi (Avatar/Saving Private Ryan) to discuss their creative dynamic and why a 35mm shooting style was the perfect approach to capturing the film’s uniquely disturbing feel…
STARBRUST: The entire film is shot using a 35mm camera. Can you tell us what you enjoy the most about filming that way and what it brings to a movie like this in particular?
JT Mollner: When I grew up watching movies in the ’90s and other films that I was tuned onto from the ’70s, and before it, there was always a look that differentiated cinema from TV, and that’s the beginning of it for me. There’s a look, a feeling, when you watch something on film. When I started making short films decades later, everybody was shooting digitally, and I just looked at the quality and the way those movies looked, and I said, “This isn’t what I signed up for, I want to shoot film.” So we did everything we could to start shooting film when I started making short films. When I met Giovanni at the ASC Awards – through our mutual friend at Kodak, Steve Bellamy – he felt the same way. Especially with this movie, and it’s not just 35mm, I love it all, 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, but in this movie, we knew when we were developing the look, the anamorphic, 35mm, it just felt right for this story and what we were trying to convey, and obviously I found the right guy to do that with…
Giovanni Ribisi: Yeah, I think there was also this thing when you’re growing up and you’ve been shooting for the last fifteen years or so. There were just a lot of misconceptions about film being so much more expensive than digital, or it’s for those movies that are 120 million dollars, and it really isn’t. It’s a lot more accessible than people would think. At the end of the day, I think the story is the most important factor, but I think we both agree that it’s a better tool, generally, to tell those stories, and there’s just sort of an organic quality, a superior image I guess.
JT: Also, it’s a visual medium, so I think that matters so much. And if the look doesn’t matter, we might as well be doing radio shows. The look matters, but I also love the process, and some people hate it. I’m used to it now, but the process keeps us disciplined. Giovanni likes to work that way as well. Everybody on set, when they hear that film roll, when they smell it, and they see it, it just creates a level of reverence for the process, and for cinema, while you’re at work, that I think ups everybody’s game.
Giovanni, this is your first full-length movie as a cinematographer; what was the most rewarding moment of the whole process for you, and why?
Giovanni: It’s not because I’m sitting next to him, but it was really working with JT and watching him go through the process of making this movie. No movie is easy, but in this case, it was like something that I had never seen. When I first saw an early cut, I remember turning to the other producer Steven Schneider, and feeling like it was just so radical and digesting it. I was just happy that we had gone through everything that we had gone through.
STRANGE DARLING screens at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on August 24th and will be released in UK cinemas this September 20th
