INTERVIEW: Living with Alzheimer’s detailed in ‘Real. Live. Girl’
Photo: Real. Live. Girl stars Robert Pine and Rachel Nichols. Photo courtesy of the production / Provided by Rogers and Cowan with permission.
The LA Shorts International Film Festival finishes up this week, but not without first premiering the new Bonnie-Kathleen Ryan film, Real. Live. Girl. The short stars Robert Pine, Rachel Nichols and Monique Coleman.
In the story, Nichols’ character of Jennifer takes care of her ailing father, Norman (Pine). He has Alzheimer’s, and it continues to worsen and take its toll. When a friend (Coleman) stops by to offer some help, Jennifer is hopeful she may have one final chance to connect with her father.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Ryan, whose film will premiere Thursday, July 25 at the festival. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What are the unique challenges of directing a short film? Do the time constraints make it easier or more difficult?
Telling a complete story in a limited amount of time and space requires precision. In a feature you earn a little breath and can build toward moments and develop slower relationships. In a short film, the percentage every single frame holds a bigger the weight. One minute is a 10th of your film. I think the unique challenge with a short is revising the script until each of those precious moments is compelling and necessary.
I always think of Hemingway’s six-word short story, “For Sale: Baby Shoes, never worn,” as an example of incredibly powerful and brief storytelling. I want my films to provoke thought and leave the audience thinking about the characters and emotions and relationships afterwards. In this case, Carmella Casinelli, the creative producer, was incredibly involved. We revised the short script together at least 30 times before we began filming. I think that the short film time constraint encourages creativity and distilling down the most essential story.
What inspired this particular short film?
Real. Live. Girl is a story that I’ve been wanting to tell for the last several years. My godfather passed away from Alzheimer’s, and we were very close. I wanted to explore the emotions and impulse in finding innovative ways to connect with a loved one who is losing time and memory. I’m intrigued by the idea of meeting the person where they live, so to speak. I wanted to tell a story about a daughter who selflessly gives the gift of connection to her father because that’s where he lives now. I think it offers a place for creativity and love and generosity. Because that comes from a true place of my own experience, I hope it resonates with viewers.
Do you have plans to make this short film into a feature length, or do you feel that the project is finished?
Real. Live. Girl is a completed piece. Rachel Nichols and Robert Pine really deliver beautiful performances, and I’m so proud of the range and complexity they bring to a short piece. The producers, Carmella and Doug, worked hard to give us all the tools to make exactly this story, and the cinematographer Meena Singh shot this beautiful imagery that defines the Real. Live. Girl world sharply and heightened — slightly altered. So I’m really happy with what we did and am satisfied that we told the story.
That said, I think the father/daughter relationship is something that will come up in features that I make because it’s an important relationship in my own life and one that I don’t see represented in cinema as often as some others.
When did you first become interested in film?
I think when I saw the The Wizard of Oz and Back to the Future. The color and imagination and magic of those big alternate universes really resonated with me as a child.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Real. Live. Girl, directed by Bonnie-Kathleen Ryan, will play Thursday, July 25 at 5:30 p.m. at the Laemmle Noho in Los Angeles as part of the LA Shorts International Film Festival. Click here for more information and tickets.
