{"id":8289,"date":"2025-06-16T01:46:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T01:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/?p=8289"},"modified":"2025-06-16T01:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T01:53:44","slug":"talkhouse-to-create-something-true-you-need-to-forget-the-rules-and-just-leap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/talkhouse-to-create-something-true-you-need-to-forget-the-rules-and-just-leap\/","title":{"rendered":"To Create Something True, You Need to Forget the Rules and Just Leap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Once upon a time, on the beautiful Sicilian island of Filicudi, my dear friend Peach asked if I\u2019d be interested in directing a short film for her fashion brand. The shoot would take place at her godmother\u2019s palazzo just outside of Rome. Of course, I said yes without hesitation. Frankly, I\u2019ll take any excuse to extend a vacation in Italy.<\/p>\n

A week later, I was in Palermo with my boyfriend, Daryl Wein, showing him photos of the palazzo. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you make a feature there?\u201d he said. I told him he was insane, but something in me said:\u00a0Go for it<\/i>. I asked Peach, half-expecting a polite no. Instead, she lit up: \u201cGreat idea! First two weeks of September should work.\u201d I pretended none of this was happening and went to sleep.<\/p>\n

The next morning, I woke up to a long, jetlag-fueled message from Daryl. He\u2019d stayed up all night writing an outline for our so-called feature. And weirdly \u2026 it wasn\u2019t bad. Still, I didn\u2019t take it seriously. I mean, I\u2019m going to direct my first feature film in Italy this September? That\u2019s only two months away! How, when I have been trying to make my\u00a0real<\/i>\u00a0first feature\u00a0<\/i>for seven years?! Daryl shrugged. \u201cYou\u2019ll improvise off an outline, like Cassavetes.\u201d To me, that sounded like a complete nightmare, but a tiny part of me was intrigued.<\/p>\n

So there I was, sitting on the beach, supposed to be reading some pretentious novel, but instead, I was revising the outline for what we were now calling\u00a0Untitled Rome Film<\/i>. Over the next few days, Daryl and I went back and forth. I was annoyed it was eating into my holiday \u2026 but maybe it would be worth it? After all, I had been dying to make a movie for almost a decade.<\/p>\n

We sent the outline to a friend I\u2019ll call \u201cM,\u201d who is a talented actor, and asked if he\u2019d be interested. He replied: \u201cYES YES YES. 100% I\u2019ll shoot this with you in Rome.\u201d I think Rome was the draw for most people. Lesson: make movies in places you and your actors would enjoy hanging out in. Daryl immediately sent it to his lawyer, who, to our shock, set up a Zoom with financiers the very next day. We stayed up until 3 a.m. (they were in Los Angeles), and by the end of the call, they said, \u201cWe\u2019ll wire you the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

We jumped up and down. I still didn\u2019t believe it. Our beautiful road trip through Sicily had suddenly become \u2026 preproduction. More actors came on board, just off the outline, and I started to panic. This was really happening. But how the hell was I going to pull this off? No prep, no script. I\u2019m used to storyboarding, obsessively researching every detail. How do you even make a shot list from an outline? What if I forget the story? I turned to Daryl: \u201cWill you just \u2026 direct it for me?\u201d He laughed and said \u201cAbsolutely not. This is your moment. Seize it.\u201d It was a beautiful act of love on his part to give me this gift.<\/p>\n

My biggest fear was losing control on set. So I insisted,\u00a0We need a screenplay<\/i>. And that\u2019s when a mutual friend of ours, Paul Sado, descended like an angel. He happened to text Daryl, saying he was looking for work. Daryl replied, \u201cWanna write a screenplay with us?\u201d<\/p>\n

And just like that,\u00a0Untitled Rome Film<\/i>\u00a0became something real, shaped as we traveled from Noto to Ragusa and on to Modica, our days split between rewriting scenes and debating them with Paul and M.<\/p>\n

As September neared, I started calling Italian producers, telling them what little budget we had. All politely declined, except one: Tommaso Bertani of Ring Film, who was in Capri and clearly not in the mood to work. But he said yes.<\/p>\n

After one last scuba dive in Ortigia, we flew to Rome for preproduction. Then the chaos began, the kind that only happens when you\u2019re making a film. Actors dropped out,; at one point, two in the same day. It felt like it was over. And then Peach told me there\u2019d been a death in her family, so we could no longer shoot in the palazzo. Total panic. Most of the film took place there, and we were planning to house the actors there too. We hadn\u2019t even budgeted for locations.<\/p>\n

But this is Rome. A city of palazzos, beauty and Fellini-like serendipity. I truly believe that when you\u2019re making a film, everything happens for the best; that faith is what keeps me from despair. That, and a secret verse I read from the Quran for good luck. But before I fast-forward to the end, let me rewind.<\/p>\n

For seven years, I was working on another film, also set in Italy. I was convinced it would be my first feature. Its failure broke something in me. I couldn\u2019t be in a relationship, and worse, I struggled to love myself. I was so tunnel-visioned on that one script. When I met Daryl, he encouraged me to start smaller, make something more manageable, and I resisted. Until this film. Until now. He really is a great producer and partner, I guess.<\/p>\n

To make this movie,\u00a0Electra<\/i>\u00a0(as it is now called), I had to let go of ego, and let go of the fantasy of how my first film was supposed to happen. This one gave me no time to prep. And once you lock an actor, you\u2019re locked into the shoot dates; if you move them, you risk losing everything. So we stuck to the plan: September it was.<\/p>\n

My cinematographer, Michael Alden Lloyd, called this production \u201cbootcamp for directing.\u201d And it was. I had to trust my gut, because there was no other option. But somehow, that gave me more confidence. I had the most incredible team. And I got to shoot in my favorite place on earth. It was fast, wild and freeing. Sometimes, to create something true, you need to forget the rules and just leap.<\/p>\n

View this article at Talkhouse<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, on the beautiful Sicilian island of Filicudi, my dear friend Peach asked if I\u2019d be interested in directing a short film for her fashion brand. The shoot would take place at her godmother\u2019s palazzo just outside of Rome. Of course, I said yes without hesitation. Frankly, I\u2019ll take any excuse to
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