For a long time, when you mentioned the term ‘indie movie’ people had one thought in their mind, a young guy, with a camcorder, in the backyard, making some kind of dumb-ass zombie movie. Well, those days are gone! Now-a-days, indie filmmakers are enlightened, thoughtful filmmakers, attempting to make not just scary or gory movies, but giving us little pieces of art that main-stream Hollywood can’t (or won’t) touch. One of the filmmakers out there doing her best is Elisabeth Fies, who gave us The Commune (that I reviewed last month, check out my review of The Commune here). Elisabeth is the kind of filmmaker who thinks before she acts and isn’t afraid to take her time to get it right…as you can see in The Commune. So, I couldn’t help but want to catch up with her and find out a bit more about this up and coming filmmaker.

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BM – Thanks for taking the time.

EF – Thank you.

BM - Where did the idea to set the movie in a commune come from?

EF - My dad first took me to the Isis Oasis Animal Sanctuary (where we shot The Commune) when I was 16. I met Loreon, the head priestess, and held an ocelot in my arms back before they stopped letting civilians do that for insurance purposes. So I've always had it in the back of my head that I wanted to make something in that cool, eccentric location. There's so much I didn't get to show, but it's probably best so that people don't think I made the movie ABOUT Isis Oasis. When I became an indie filmmaker and thought about production value, one location, never before been seen on film...a commune seemed like a fantastic, untapped creative idea for the thriller/horror genre.

BM - Do you have some connection or experience with either communes or cults?

EF - I've visited other communes and my dad now owns the famous New Buffalo from EASY RIDER. Communes seemed like a logical setting for a trap. I was raised in bohemian northern California and I find the idea of getting to make up your own religion without any kind of checks and balance system very frightening. But it's no commune specifically...I grew up in the era of the New Age self-help book, and saw many adults around me flit from one New York Times bestselling author to another thinking they would find the answers. At 2 grand a pop per retreat weekend. Plus when I was in my early twenties, I was in a car accident and some legal proceedings about whether or not I could be competent, and my estranged dad was living on a commune and wanted to gain custody of me as an adult woman. So yeah, I probably started thinking about that feeling of helplessness and evolved the teen visitation battle from that nightmare. There's not much worse than feeling someone who isn't competent and has different values and priorities is making all your life choices for you, which is a frustration most teens identify with whether it's true or not. It just feels unfair and frightening.

BM - Is religion something you feel strongly about?

EF - It's funny, I never thought so until I realized how many of my scripts examine religion in the b or c plotline...I think it comes down to the heroes I write all underdogs or rebels, and those characters are defined by the societal structure they're fighting against. There's a limited amount of hierarchies...schools, government, religion...you have to have at least one. Add my satirical-bent to the mix, and yeah, religion becomes something that is brought up in the worlds I create. Hypocrisy and judging people are two of my pet peeves, so I think it comes out in my writing when I'm looking at who is a hero and who is a villain. But my work has never attacked one religion, just a half-dozen different religions with zealots at the end of the spectrum.

BM - Were the similarities in pacing and tone to 70s movies intentional?

EF - Completely! I love it when critics appreciate that. I opened with Repulsion, and moved right into May and Oedipus in the first minute of the film. This for the totally literate viewer tells them exactly what they’re going to see, in the same way a Greek chorus would. And then just to make sure the subconscious is listening, I put the correlating mythological paintings in the opening credits and had the Esmeralda character come in at the halfway mark to tell you exactly what you'd seen and exactly what was coming. The Commune is highly structured, which it had to be because I was making more than your average number of points. I think the density of the symbolism and the difficulty of the arguments is what makes it appeal so much to book readers. But the tricky thing about symbolism is you can't beat people over the heads with it...the layer system has to be layered in to break down the viewer's defenses so at the end of the movie you can pour the horror in and allow your viewers a safe place to feel and release the anxieties, taboos and dreads of modern life. That's McKee again, bless him. His horror and thriller classes are genius. I studied the structure of Don't Look Now and Miracle Mile to design a screenplay that would distract audiences from the thriller structure, since we all have inherently internalized what has to happen in a thriller. And then because it was a puzzle piece movie, when certain scenes didn't work and my fantastic editor Todd Miro and I had to remove them, we had to rewrite the movie...And for that, Angel Heart and The Howling provided the final memory repression structure I was missing in the original script. The last puzzle piece was making the whistle tune a through line. It came to me last winter after viewing Angel Heart again, and Todd and I knew that was it and the movie was done. Thank god we had time to test and edit, test and edit...we really got our process down, which gives me great confidence going into the complicated, huge world of shooting Pistoleras next. I'd say we tested around 15 versions of The Commune. And Pistoleras didn't win awards until version seventeen, I think. The biggest mistake I see filmmakers make is thinking they're done after a few screenplay drafts or a couple edits of the movie. Good movies don't happen by accident. They take sweat and brain power and tenacity. And if you're a real filmmaker, it's not done and going out there with your name on it until it's GOOD. Especially for indies who aren't answering to studio notes. No excuse for a half-baked movie. There are people who won't like your movie because they don't like the genre or your lead or all those other intangibles that make up personal taste...but there's a huge difference between saying "this movie isn't for me", and "this movie is poorly constructed." The real critics know the difference.

BM - Because this isn't really your standard horror movie, what difficulties did you have in getting The Commune made?

EF - No, it's a genre hybrid, which I think is the only way to tell a surprising story anymore. We financed The Commune through friends and family right before the recession hit, and our investors are pretty stoked at the amazing reviews and awards we're receiving. They believed in me because of my pedigree, so it wasn't actually hard to sell. I know my movies, and I knew which niches were going to love The Commune: filmmakers, teen girl, the literati, and gay men. Those are great niches. And the filmmaker niche has given me great access to many of my heroes, who are treating me like a peer. It's pretty mind-blowing. But you know, screenwriting guru Robert McKee calls this kind of movie the Rolls Royce of horror, and says every auteur attempts one at some point in their career. It's a coup to pull it off as my debut.

BM - Any thoughts on a sequel?

EF - Chauntal and Dave (my lead actors) ask me that every three months or so...I know they'd love to go back, and my sister always talks about a prequel...I've got other projects I want to make, unfortunately. But if people really dig the story, I won't rule it out. Nothing's more disappointing than falling in love with characters and not getting to hear more about them. But I don't expect this film to be a huge hit that calls for a sequel. I would think it would be a cult film that lingers. Maybe even something we'll be doing a Q & A about at the New Beverly in twenty years, where people are seeing and asking about all the Freudian and Jungian imagery, and how even the mythology images in the credits tell you EXACTLY what you're about to watch. That's always the dream of every filmmaker, right? That your work will resonate for the next generation or two...One can always hope!

BM - Being an indie filmmakers is probably one of the most difficult jobs I can imagine. Does being a female indie filmmakers bring any added problems?

EF - The biggest problem I've noticed is the mentoring aspect...some men will come into my life and be won over by my work and offer to mentor me, but they quickly lose interest if I don't date them. I've talked about that problem with many women in the industry, and it's a tricky one that affects women in the indie world and the Hollywood world. Networking is key to your success, and if you're not one of the guys going golfing you're missing out. There are other things that crop up, like whether my authority is respected. But listen, I adore men, and I've worked really hard to learn their working language and be a part of their world. I've been able to build a production team that protects my vision, provides the elements I need to make my movies happen, and I need them to be part of my film army so I can make my movies, and they save me. I appreciate these heroes beyond what I can express to them. I'm actually getting a tattoo this week on LA Ink to show my thanks.

BM - What are you working on next?

EF - This summer I'm executive producing a horror anthology that riffs on Je T'aime Paris. It will be shorts by me and a bunch of my friends set in Hollywood neighborhoods, and is called I Hate LA. Super fun. And then it looks like this winter I'll be heading down to Mexico to shoot Pistoleras, a teen chick spaghetti western set in modern LA and Baja that is Tarantino meets Gloria Steinem. That screenplay won two big industry awards and is the one everyone asks me about every week. So now I can finally say keep your fingers crossed everything pans out with our last two investors, and Pistoleras will be knocking your socks off in 2010.

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We here at Rogue Cinema can’t wait to see what Elisabeth gives us next, but, personally, being a huge fan of westerns, I can’t wait for Pistoleras…get working Lis! You can find out more about Lis and The Commune by heading over to The Commune’s web page.