Kusama Infinity Interview: Heather Lenz
“Personally it’s important to me to try to help not only women filmmakers but underprivileged filmmakers. My heart is always with the underdog.”
KUSAMA: INFINITY is an intense portrait of a woman whose continuous search for belonging left her isolated and alone.
I first heard of Yayoi Kusama a few years ago during her meteoric rise to fame. I saw the selfie paradise that exists in her infinity mirrors, read briefly about her role in the 1960s art scene in America and learned of her current residence in a mental hospital. This alone should have fascinated me and enticed me to learn more and yet, it didn’t.
It wasn’t until I watched KUSAMA: INFINITY and saw the struggles she encountered, that my interest was peaked.
Her work is big, bold and bright — it swallows you whole. How was she kept a secret for so long?
From the very beginning Kusama was drowning. She left a family and a society that didn’t understand her and fled to a country that continuously pushed her aside. Her struggles with mental illness were fed by the rampant sexism and racism of the time, never achieving the level of success she deserved — until now.
Kusama has been existing in an art world since the 1950s but has only become a worldwide success in the last decade or so. KUSAMA: INFINITY plots her progression from childhood to now, the struggle to climb up and the hard, fast falls. It is amazing to hear her life in her own words, and see the artist creating spontaneous work on such a grand scale in her late 80s.
Director, writer and producer Heather Lenz sifted through Kusama’s massive body of work to create her debut feature. KUSAMA: INFINITY premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2018 and was acquired by Magnolia Pictures.
Lenz’s first short documentary, Back to Back was nominated for a student Academy Award and was screened in film festivals world wide.
You can see KUSAMA: INFINITY at TIFF starting May 11, 2018 and it will be released in America in September.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with filmmaking.
Heather Lenz: I took my first film classes when I was earning an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts. I had a wonderful professor, Cynthia Penter, who embraced creative approaches to story telling and exposed us to wonderful and beautiful filmmaking. From the start I was interested in telling true stories. Later I earned my MFA in Cinematic Arts from USC and studied documentary filmmaking with people like Kate Amend and Mark Harris.
Tell us about Kusama Infinity. Where did the idea come from?
HL: I first became interested in Kusama in the early 90s. It was immediately apparent to me that her contributions to the American world had not been properly appreciated or recognized. I also recognized that she was a complex person who has faced tremendous challenges and I wanted to share her story with a wider audience. I started working on a script about her 17 years ago but I later decided to do a documentary for two reasons — first to record her story in her own words while she was around to tell it and second because I knew as a women director the odds of me getting to direct a period biopic right after grad school were practically non-existent.
What surprised you most when talking with Kusama?
HL: Kusama is a wonderful combination of sensitivity and the power that comes with success. Spending time with her was a privilege. I loved hearing her stories first hand. I particularly liked hearing about her experience during WWII, it made history so interesting. I really admire her tenacity and I’m thrilled that she is now getting the recognition she deserves.
Why did you choose to leave the words she wrote silent?
HL: Before we started working with our final editor Keita Ideno, who is bilingual, we had relied heavily on Kusama’s autobiography. We planned to have a voice over artist read the parts we used in English but we could never find the right voice. Fortunately, Keita was able to find hidden gems in our footage that we didn’t know existed and as we pressed forward with editing we eliminated the autobiography. In the final version of the film, which will premiere in the US in September and eventually be available through Hulu there will only be silent words when letters from the 50s and 60s are read.
What was your favourite part throughout the making of Kusama Infinity?
HL: Meeting Kusama for the first time. Finishing it after so many years working on it will also be epic.
Can you tell us about some/all of the other amazing women who worked on this film?
HL: My producing partner, Karen Johnson, has worked with me on the film for over a decade and we have been on a long, hard journey together to make the film. Although Kusama is now the world’s most famous living female artist it wasn’t that way when we started and I can’t begin to count how many grants we have applied for together. Although we won several grants which helped us piece together funding for the film it was an uphill battle and we received countless rejections along the way. We also faced many other obstacles, including enduring the 2008 stock market crash at a time when we had a lot of credit card debt due to self-funding the film.
Our Associate Producer, Reina Higashitani, has also been involved with the film for over decade and has played a key role helping us with Japanese communication.
The accomplished editor Kate Amend has seen cuts of the film from the start. She has edited multiple Academy Award winning films and is on the Board of Governors at the Academy. I always appreciate it when women who are successful in Hollywood take the time to help women who are still struggling to make their way.
We have quite a list of wonderful women who have contributed to this film and they include but are not limited to: Story Consultant, Arlene Cox; Composer, Allyson Newman, Dr. Akiko Agishi who gave us one of our first grants, The Aurora Challenge Grant, for a dream project involving travel to Japan. After awarding the grant to us, she also traveled to Japan with me for my first meeting with Kusama. The very first grant we received for the film was “From the Heart Productions” which is an organization founded by president Carole Dean. She has a heart of gold and remained involved with the film until the end.
Tell us about why you are a feminist and why it’s important to your filmmaking.
HL :I didn’t think of myself as a feminist when I started the film, but I became a feminist during the making of the film. Unfortunately, there are many similarities between the sexism Kusama faced in the male dominated art world of the 1950s and 1960s and the challenges women directors still face in Hollywood today. It’s well known that women earn less than men. That’s linked to women not receiving the same respect for their work and as a result, women have to work longer and harder. There is still a lot of progress that needs to happen.
Fortunately organizations like Women in Film and Film Independent exist. The president of Film Independent, Josh Welsh, is focused on helping all independent filmmakers, regardless of their gender or race and hopefully over time the future of film will look more like that. Personally it’s important to me to try to help not only women filmmakers but underprivileged filmmakers. My heart is always with the underdog.
Who are your favourite women working in the film industry?
HL: Some of my favorite films by women directors are:
“Hal” by Amy Scott
“The Kid Stays in the Picture” — directed by Nanette Burnstein (and Brett Morgan)
“In the Realms of the Unreal” by Jessica Yu
“Blackfish” by Gabriela Cowperthwaite
What’s the best advice about filmmaking you’ve ever received?
HL: At this point, more important than that is the advice I would give to an aspiring documentary filmmaker. I suggest, for a first film, pick a topic that is logistically simple — that means avoiding topics that require international travel, multiple languages, and expensive archival imagery. I would never want to see anyone spend the years I have spent to make one film. Life is too short for that.
What are you working on now/next?
HL: I’m still working full time on the final deliverable’s for Kusama. There are many projects I would like to pursue but after spending so many years on a passion project I have to be very careful about what I get involved with next.
Finally, recommend one #MUFFApproved** film for our blog readers!
HL: I recommend “Hal,” the new documentary about Hal Ashby and his struggles to maintain creative control of films. It’s a great story and incredibly well done. The director, Amy Scott, did a wonderful job.
