Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Filmmaker Lanie Zipoy Aims To Make TV and Film More Reflective Of The US Population
Telling stories is powerful. Working collaboratively with dozens, sometimes hundreds of other artists to bring a film together still amazes me. I love everything about it.
I want TV and Film to reflect the United States, its people and their stories. I dream of narratives and characters that resonate with audiences across the world. In Pedro Almodóvar’s film Pain & Glory, there is a moment where the main character played by Antonio Banderas experiences dysphagia where he chokes on his own saliva. When I saw that moment on screen, I broke into tears because I battle dysphagia. Those couple of minutes meant the world to me as I’d never seen the condition explored in such a way in TV or Film. That storyline allowed me to talk to many of my friends about my dysphagia for the first time. When I shared my own battle on social media, dozens of people reached out to me who were dealing with it too. We realized we weren’t so alone.
As a part of our series about Inspirational Women In Hollywood, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Lanie Zipoy.
Lanie Zipoy is a Memphis-born, Brooklyn-based producer and director. Her feature film directorial debut The Subject, starring Jason Biggs and Aunjanue Ellis, is on the festival circuit, picking up top honors at the Lighthouse International Film Festival and the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. She co-directed the short film Kid Sister as well as the play, which starred Zazie Beetz and Dominique Fishback in their first roles. She has also produced indie narrative and documentary features, including legendary producer Ben Barenholtz’s directorial debut Alina.
A Bessie- and Lortel Award-nominated theater producer, Lanie’s credits include Bethany, starring America Ferrera, ACE by Emmy Award-winning writer Ted Greenberg and Voices Inside, an incarcerated playwriting program, which featured actors Michael Shannon, Ashlie Atkinson, and Ron Canada. With Recent Cutbacks, she has developed a new project for Audible Originals. Lanie is a Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the 2012–2014 Lab at WP Theater.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Memphis. During summers, everyone in the neighborhood gathered on my house’s front lawn. We turned on the radio, and then the kids, including myself and my younger sister, danced and lip-synced to different songs that played. We fought over who would get to sing what song when it came on the radio. Everyone–parents and kids–voted on who gave the best performance that evening. Your parents did not vote for you because they were your parents; they voted for you only if you were the best performer that night. The prizes were three rocks with gemstones, our version of gold, silver and bronze medals. The largest rock with the most sparkles was awarded to the winner each night. The winner kept the rock for 24 hours but had to return it for the following night’s competition. I will never forget those nights.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
When I was little, around six or seven years old, I saw Norma Rae, Martin Ritt’s film with a magnificent, Oscar-winning performance by Sally Field. I was absolutely mesmerized by the film. I watched it many times and sobbed with each viewing. I knew then that I was interested in community building, in standing up for other folks and myself, and in films that could move you to tears. It took me many decades to direct a feature film, The Subject, that shares some of those same impulses, but the journey was worth the wait. I was able to do community organizing as well as volunteer work with children, senior citizens and more along the way. Those experiences are reflected in my filmmaking, and hopefully, my filmmaking honors that work too.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
In the last nine years, I have survived four concussions, a couple on the job. While the recovery from them has been tedious and often challenging, I call them my biggest gifts. They have taught me to laugh at myself; something I rarely did before they happened. They have required me to be kinder to myself than I have ever been. In that kindness, I have been able to extend it to others I work with as well. They have instructed me to live life as fully as possible on my own terms. The concussions have helped me become a better director as I listen more intently and observe more acutely the needs of cast and crew.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
On one of my earliest film projects, the sound files for an important scene were corrupted. The visual files were gorgeous. I, though, didn’t have the budget to reshoot or do extensive re-recording of dialogue. Instead, I reimagined the project and salvaged the work. It became more experimental in nature, to which film luckily lends itself. Since then, I have been very diligent about the technical aspects of my projects. I may make other mistakes, but I will not make that one again.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I give a big shout out to Stacie Capone, who founded The FilmMakeHers, a group of female-identifying filmmakers. This wonderful group meets once a month in both New York and Los Angeles, and the members offer each other resources, crew recommendations, and moral support. Stacie is a generous and thoughtful woman. She is also a spectacular producer and actress. I greatly admire her work and this wonderful, enchanted collective that she founded.
I could write a novel about the fabulous female filmmakers I have met because of this group. I am in constant contact with at least five women in The FilmMakeHers. We bounce ideas off of each other, share best practices, handhold each other through post-production, and give notes on each other’s projects. This group is a lifeline, a pick-me-up, and a poetic muse. I can’t rave enough about how having people in your corner is necessary.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
Has everything in your life gone perfectly? If it has, congratulations! That is very, very rare. If it hasn’t, then you, like me, have already found out about your resilience and your ability to bounce back. Everyone faces challenges and failures. How we persevere shows what we are made of.
A couple of years ago, I was set to direct a feature film and worked with cinematographer Darren Joe to break down the script and create the cinematic style. We scouted film locations together and prepped for the big shoot. The film, alas, never happened. We were both incredibly disappointed.
Fast forward to a year later: we began the prep process for another feature film, one that we did make together. That film is now on the festival circuit and has won many awards. That shoot felt like it was our third or fourth together, not our inaugural feature film as colleagues. On that first failed project, we developed a working style and great communication that rolled over to the second feature opportunity. I look back now and am very grateful for both experiences–the failed one and the successful one.
What drives you to get up everyday and work in TV and Film? What change do you want to see in the industry going forward?
Telling stories is powerful. Working collaboratively with dozens, sometimes hundreds of other artists to bring a film together still amazes me. I love everything about it.
I want TV and Film to reflect the United States, its people and their stories. I dream of narratives and characters that resonate with audiences across the world. In Pedro Almodóvar’s film Pain & Glory, there is a moment where the main character played by Antonio Banderas experiences dysphagia where he chokes on his own saliva. When I saw that moment on screen, I broke into tears because I battle dysphagia. Those couple of minutes meant the world to me as I’d never seen the condition explored in such a way in TV or Film. That storyline allowed me to talk to many of my friends about my dysphagia for the first time. When I shared my own battle on social media, dozens of people reached out to me who were dealing with it too. We realized we weren’t so alone.
Other changes I want to see are better working conditions for everyone on set and more cast and crew members who are BIPOC, female-identifying, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and differently-abled. When a 20-year industry veteran visited our set for The Subject, the first thing she said was, “I’ve never seen this many women on set before.” I want to continue that ethos with other films I make.
The industry often demands long hours, sometimes too long. As we all know, lack of sleep and improper rest aren’t good for anybody. I strive to have sets where the hours are reasonable, yet we film everything we have planned for the day.
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
My feature film directorial debut The Subject is on the festival circuit and won Best Narrative Feature at both film festivals it has been in so far: Lighthouse International Film Festival and the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. We have more festivals to be announced soon, and we want to get it out in the world since it feels like it’s in deep conversation with the United States at this particular moment in history.
I am producing Bat-Sheva Guez’s magical realism feature film And How She. It is currently in pre-production. Bat-Sheva makes exquisite, breathtaking dance-inspired films like the grief-stricken In This Life, which she co-created with Robbie Fairchild. I can’t wait for this extraordinary woman to direct her first feature film. The script, which was just a finalist for the Screencraft Screenwriting Contest, is brilliant.
I plan to produce and direct more feature films. I have two in the pipeline–a horror film that is extremely gory, yet stunning, currently in pre-production, and a docu-fiction film about an 80-year-old woman in search of a new dance partner after her husband of 60 years dies. I also want to direct a short film, Kissing River Phoenix, adapted from the short story of the same name by Kat Moore, my sister. She took our brother’s death from AIDS in the early 1990s and turned it into a wistful teenage ode to unrequited love, self-salvation, and the enduring, iconic beauty of River Phoenix.
We are very interested in looking at diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture and our youth growing up today?
1) Diversity and inclusion in TV and Film are vital. These forms of entertainment have offered a community to viewers when they felt they lacked one in their in-person lives. For example, sitcoms like Soap, Ellen and Will & Grace; dramas like L.A. Law and My So-Called Life; and documentaries like Tongues Untied presented LGBTQIA+ storylines, and these characters were some of the first LGBTQIA+-identified people whom many Americans encountered. These TV shows and many films helped change the discourse around rights and same-sex marriage in this country. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and its successor Queer Eye have also opened people’s hearts and minds, not just the folks who enjoy a makeover, but those who watch these wonderful transformations too.
2) In every life, there is a story. Imagine a world where we celebrate all of these stories, where every voice has the potential to be lifted up. I have worked with incarcerated writers and seen firsthand how telling your story can change who you are, who you want to be, and who you become. Storytelling is a powerful, transformative work. The more stories that are told, embraced and produced, the more we understand about each other and ourselves.
3) Diversity and inclusion in telling stories mean that there are jobs to support people from many different backgrounds and abilities. It is empowering and offers work and experience to youth and others. Film and TV work brings communities of people together–people who possess diverse skills, and harness them to tell one cogent story for a two-hour movie, or a longer arc of a TV show. When a diverse group of people work together in this way, they learn from one another, expand their worldview, and take that with them to their next job in the industry.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1) Be like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. Remember how she explained the connections she made for the new Trask business deal by reading the newspaper on the Staten Island ferry in her big hair and tennis shoes? Read as much as you can–trades, other news, poetry, and everything else. You never know where ideas will come from.
2) Think of Waiting to Exhale as your blueprint. Find your ride-or-die crew, your version of Angela Bassett, Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, and Loretta Devine. Surround yourself with allies who will understand what you are going through. The best colleagues are creative, give great feedback, push you to be a better artist than you thought you could be and pick you up in tough times. Be prepared to return the favor.
3) Expand your circle like Jason Patric in The Lost Boys. Be open to new people, new experiences, and those cool 80s clothes. Leave the vampires behind, though. It’s important to have friends inside the business, but it is equally important to have friends who can’t tell a 70mm lens from a 40mm one. I met many of my dearest friends while volunteering. We connected over tutoring children, supporting arts nonprofit, and running with people who needed sight assistance. These fellow volunteers keep me sane and show me there is a world outside of the industry. They inspire me with the great work they do in the world. They have also been great resources when I needed non-film related connections. For example, I envisioned fantastic visual art for the home in my feature film, but I was working with a limited indie budget. My best friend’s wife came to the rescue. She put me in touch with a variety of artists who were her MFA classmates in art school, and the production design of my film soared as a result.
4) Like Lara Jean in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, write it all down. Journaling about what happens on set and during your creative process is essential. Whenever I start a new project, I look at the takeaways from previous projects to remind me what worked, what can be done better, and what is important. Keep your notebooks away from pesky little sisters, and you should be alright.
5) Don’t listen to Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own. There is crying in baseball. Wilmer Flores endeared himself to Mets fans when he shed tears while playing five years ago. Flores thought he had been traded from the team he loved, but it turned out he hadn’t been yet. His emotional display made him a fan favorite, and the Mets made it to the World Series later that season. I am not saying cry every day on the job, but we are human, after all. Bring your full self to your work. See also, the Youssou N’Dour documentary I Bring What I Love, my favorite mantra of all time. Let me say it again: I bring what I love.
Can you share with our readers any self care routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.
My art practice includes a few self-care routines. I do mobility exercises every day. Whether I get a full workout in or not, I spend 25 minutes moving around to increase my flexibility. I read at least one poem before I go to sleep. Favorite poets at the moment include Hanif Abdurraqib, Franny Choi, Faylita Hicks, Danez Smith, and Ilya Kaminsky.
I also search for at least one joyous experience each day. As I recovered from multiple concussions, I struggled to feel happy or dream for a few years. I looked for things that would make me laugh and found two: corgi videos and One Direction songs. If I’m in a bad mood or annoyed, I watch a corgi video or listen to a 1D song. Instantly, my shoulders release and my mood lightens. I had never loved a boy band before, but I have no shame in singing along to Best Song Ever these days. Find whatever brings you joy. It is a game-changer.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Focus on what you can control.” This is a motto repeated by Mets pitching ace Jacob deGrom, the back-to-back, two-time National League Cy Young Award winner. He’s very good. In 2018, while on his way to one of the best seasons by a Major League pitcher ever, he remained steadfast despite his beloved teammates blowing leads and/or not scoring behind his efforts. Instead of expressing utter frustration, he focused on what he could control, his pitches. That was it. He soared.
Putting an independent feature together is a lot of work that requires you to keep many plates spinning in the air. While making my feature film, I thought about deGrom’s words. Every day during pre-production and production, I asked myself, what would Jacob deGrom do today? I looked at what was in my control and focused on those things that were within my grasp. It made a huge difference.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would work on food insecurity and hunger in the United States and in the world. I read that in the last month 30% of Black children in the US were hungry. 14 million children in this country are hungry right now. That should not be. The pandemic has made everything exponentially worse in terms of food access, food distribution, and poverty. That would be the first thing I would work on. Changing the situation for 14 million children would be a great way to start.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Meeting filmmaker Martha Coolidge is a dream of mine. I would love to talk with her about her filmmaking, behind-the-scenes stories, and the longevity of her career. She is a huge inspiration.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
Yes, please connect with me on Instagram @lanstress and on Twitter @lanieprochaine. My website is laniezipoy.com.
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Thank you! I really enjoyed the interview.
