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00:04Bravo, Carrie. Very powerful, very powerful scene. I'm going to come on very shortly to
00:12how you both collaborated on constructing this amazing character. Guy, maybe you can just start
00:20by telling us a little about this. I'm fascinated by this personal connection that you had to this
00:26character and this story. Yeah, first of all, good morning, everyone. I was only eight when my
00:36family took me to seminars. It's called seminars to see my grandmother kind of like to participate
00:44with her in those meetings. And I didn't know what it means. I was like dancing with people in the
00:50dark. I heard horrific stories from people and my grandmother crying. And it was so weird to me,
00:58but no one told me what it is exactly because we didn't know what it is exactly. And until I
01:04became
01:05a teenager when my family basically broken in front of my eyes and my grandmother left my grandfather,
01:13left our family and just joined this. Now we know it's a cult, but we didn't know what it is.
01:20And
01:20she fell in love with this woman and with a lot of other ladies. She just went to America and
01:32just like
01:33in a, you know, no man's land. And, you know, I didn't know a lot and I asked a lot
01:40of questions. I
01:41didn't get a lot of answers. And when I became a, you know, a student, a film student, I started
01:47investigating more and more. And I eventually, like 10 years ago, I grabbed my camera and I just went
01:56to the cult after my grandmother passed away. And I asked, and I met with a cult leader who knew
02:04me
02:04since I was eight. And I asked her questions and I got answers-ish. And I met with other cult,
02:14ex-cult members. And I got an entire whole truth that I didn't know about, harsher than what they told
02:22me.
02:22So I had two grandmothers, the grandmother from my family that I grew up with. And obviously the
02:30grandmother, the spiritual grandmother that I didn't know. And I started filming for hours and hours and
02:36hours. And I had like, you know, 50 hours of footage and I just started writing the script and everything
02:44became kind of like, this movie became my investigation of who my grandmother was. So I came with a lot
02:50of empathy
02:52because I'm a third generation to Holocaust survivors and I have perspective and I have kind of like a
02:57different approach. And I found, and so I had a montage of a story that my mother couldn't tell me.
03:07I mean, there's so much to get into there. So your grandmother went, had this Holocaust experience
03:14that's described in the movie. Yes. Even, even, even more, but yeah, she, she carried that with her. And
03:21in a way the, the cult freed her from, or didn't free her, but tried to free her from her
03:27post-trauma.
03:29You know, in the eighties, nobody knew how to deal with Holocaust survivors. They were,
03:34but she had the courage and, you know, to do something very unpopular, to leave your family,
03:42say goodbye to your daughters and your husband and go to the unknown, try to save yourself.
03:49Carrie, can you tell us how you went about engaging with that real life character as you were
03:58collaborating with Guy on creating this, what we see on screen?
04:02First, I'd like to say good morning. And also that you, Tracy does get a couple of laughs in the
04:06movie. I know it feels very heavy, but there are some laughs guys. Don't worry.
04:10And I know I look younger in person.
04:14Well, the mostly I engage with Rita's testimony. I was absolutely fascinated by the story and
04:20I started to watch hours and hours of footage from Yad Vashem and from the Shoah Foundation of
04:29testimonies, particularly women from Poland, that I could find. Because there's something very specific
04:35about the way the recounting of those unspeakable things is held in the body. And that was really,
04:41and also just the stories themselves, you know, the, just the myriad forms of trauma that were
04:48inflicted upon people. But then also that they were resilient enough to survive was also very
04:53fascinating. And people had to find a way to survive. And Rita had a very particular idea about
04:59what that looked like for herself. And Guy has said, he was sure his mother would have killed herself
05:03had she not done this. So who are we to say what is required for someone to move on?
05:07Um, you know, lost a little weight. Uh, um, and we, we really just also spent time together
05:17trying to build that family dynamic so that you could see what Rita was losing. And Tracy's really
05:21great about that. Tracy and Bella. Bella and Odessa are very smart actors. And they really jumped
05:27into that intimacy very quickly. So you could feel that family. Tracy lets your real life husband plays
05:33your husband in the movie. He does. And your kids are. He happened to be in Vancouver at the
05:37same time, taking care of our children. But, um, but really it was the hours of that storytelling
05:42that, that really intrigued me. And, um, and psychologically, you know, got me into the film.
05:50Because it is a film about trauma, it feels, and how we deal with trauma, as you say,
05:58the mechanisms we, we, we use to deal with that. And it's also about how people are drawn to extremes,
06:05right? Extremism, um, cults, extremes. Both of you have touched on that in previous work,
06:11in skin. I thought of the leftovers a bit in, in way as, as well, right? Um, did it feel
06:18like that for
06:18you? A kind of exploration of kind of extremes and, and dealing with trauma?
06:24I think that Carrie and I did not approach that as extreme, right? We, we approached it as an alternative,
06:32as a way to heal yourself that can be destructive, that can be, that has a lot of price. But
06:39who knows,
06:40if my grandmother wouldn't meet Ricky, she would probably not, you know, she would probably kill
06:45herself or do something extreme, you know? So I came with an approach that maybe she saved her,
06:54and maybe she died like she came out of the Holocaust, which is kind of a full cycle to going
07:02back to a place that looked like a concentration camp and, you know, being so, um, you know,
07:11uh, just lost. And so you didn't see Ricky as a villain, as it were.
07:18I don't think you can. You know, it is, it, for me, I had to look at it as a
07:24love story.
07:25And also the word I would use is radical, not extreme, because what, what I became very fascinated
07:31by with Rita is the idea that these, um, social rules we're living by are tacit agreements. There's
07:39nothing written down. We wake up in the morning and we're a wife and a mother and we follow all
07:44of
07:44these rules, but it's all made up. We could essentially walk away from our lives at any
07:50time, but we don't do it. And, and Rita did. And I just find that, I find it brave and
07:56shocking.
07:59And I find that the pursuit of novelty and love is not far from anyone. So I, I, I respect
08:07this
08:09decision she made, which is a very complicated one. She didn't leave her babies. She left her
08:12teenagers. She said, this is my university. I'm going off. And she, and she walked away from the
08:17strictures that are, you know, the sort of patriarchal structure she was operating inside of.
08:22It's quite bold really. And so I didn't think of it as an extreme danger. In fact, I just thought
08:27of
08:27it as like a startling choice for a woman to make in the eighties. And so, yeah, thanks. Yeah,
08:33it's not easy, right? I mean, I'm a mom. I, I relate to wanting to drop it all and walk
08:38away.
08:38Absolutely. I get more sleep in London than I do at home. They're, my kids are at home.
08:45Not to say that the cult was not manipulative and not. Yeah, sure, sure.
08:51It was. And a lot of money from Germany went to this woman. And, um, my grandmother right now is
08:59buried in a, in the woods, um, somewhere in America. And the question is, should we bring her
09:07bones back to a Jewish burial? And the answer is not sure. Maybe let her rest there. You know what
09:13I mean? That's her choice, her choice. There's a lot of unanswered questions, um, that we still have.
09:21It's not a film that's tried to answer everything. It aroused a lot of them.
09:27Kerry, let me ask you just, we can see on screen here, uh, Tracy in the background,
09:31plays your, your real life, plays your husband, is your real life husband. How do you find that
09:36collaboration? You've, not the first time you've done it, you've done it on stage, you've done it on
09:40screen. How does that go? Is it easy? Is it difficult? Do you have a shorthand? Is it?
09:45Oh, yeah. I mean, we met doing a play. It's called a showmance, if you haven't heard of it.
09:49They usually don't last. And we're going on 13 years and two children, so it's going well.
09:53Um, we love working together. Tracy is a theater person. You know, playwrights are not novelists.
09:59They're extremely collaborative. And Tracy is not, uh, he's, he's not an egotist. He's not the
10:05stereotypical actor or playwright. He's very collaborative. And anyone in the room is welcome
10:10to, uh, engage with him with, particularly with his own work. Um, he's also a feminist. Um,
10:16he's also an ensemble actor. He knows what it means to come into a, uh, uh, a movie and,
10:22and be in a supporting part. He knows that his job is to tell the story well. So I knew
10:27with him
10:27what I was getting. I wasn't going to get a guy who was going to take all the air out
10:31of the room.
10:31Know what I mean? I don't know if you've met any of those guys. I have. We love it. We
10:37have a great
10:37time. And we have a great, we have great communication. You know, it's a sober house. My husband's been sober
10:4232
10:42years. I'm sober six years. We're extremely boring. There's so much more I could ask about
10:49this. Just to wrap quickly. I have a lot of advice. So much. We all need the advice. Um,
10:55do we know what's, we're all fascinated by your careers, both of you very, you always do really
11:00interesting things. Do we know what's coming next for both of you? Gilded Age season four comes out
11:06November 2nd. Pretty far from Rita, I would say. Um, and then we're just, we're going around trying to
11:12get people to see this film. You know, Guy and Jamie worked over 10 years to bring it to life.
11:17So this is a very, this is a huge moment in their lives. So we want people to see it,
11:21of course.
11:22And then I might be making a movie in January. We'll see. I'll let you know if I make that
11:26deal.
11:28Do we know it's next? I'm writing. I'm writing. Yeah. When I'm not in festivals.
11:33But I'm so, we're so honored to be here at the London Film Festival. This is our first time here.
11:39Um, and we're really honored. Well, it's a fantastic movie. We're really happy you could be with us today.
11:45Uh, give it up for Guy and Carrie. Thanks so much.