MUFFProfile: Jeannie Donohoe
“I’m intrigued by the way people behave and present themselves in public versus their more private selves.”
GAME is a short film that packs a lot into its fourteen minutes—drive, anticipation, competition, athleticism, and massive amounts of “can’t stop, won’t stop” attitude. Even if you are as utterly un-athletic as me, by the end of GAME you’ll have almost convinced yourself it’s not too late to take up basketball.
Writer/director Jeannie Donohoe crafts an inspiring story that hits all those familiar notes yet still feels fresh, authentic, and even surprising. We’ve all been that new kid at school trying to make an impression; we’ve all had dreams we’ve wanted to achieve; and we’ve all faced road blocks trying to achieve our dreams.
It’s hard to say more about this awesome short without giving away too much. But you’ll be rooting for GAME’s protagonist AJ in more ways than one. And the question “What does it take to go all the way?” takes on a whole new meaning by the end.
Along with a powerful story, GAME features some fantastic cinematography and basketball choreography that will make you feel like you’re right there on the court with all of the other players.
And if you didn’t think GAME could get any cooler, this short was part of the Lexus Short Films competition produced by The Weinstein Company. Jeannie was selected from over 4,600 applicants to write and direct GAME and of the four winning filmmakers selected she was the only woman. GAME has gone on to win piles of awards (including a Cannes Bronze Lion Award in Entertainment and Best of Fest Audience Favorites at Palm Springs International ShortFest) and has screened at over 35 film festivals. We’re super pleased to be able to share it with you below, along with an interview with Jeannie!
Now, it makes sense that GAME really transports you right back to school. Before making films, Donohoe taught middle school in the Bronx through the Teach for America program (and earned an MS in education while doing so, phew!). Inspired by wanting to tell the stories of the young people she worked with, she decided to pursue filmmaking and earned an MFA with honours in directing from Columbia University. Along with GAME (currently in festivals), she has written and directed Lambing Season (selected for over 50 film festivals and multiple awards; named one of the “Best Short Films of 2014” by Indiewire; currently airing on PBS Film School Shorts) and Public (Palm Springs ShortFest, PBS Imagemakers).
You can watch GAME in full below, which I highly recommend as our interview with Jeannie contains slight spoilers!
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with filmmaking.
Jeannie Donohoe: I’m a writer-director based in Los Angeles, originally from Boston. I’ve always gravitated toward creative pursuits, and I studied art as an undergrad at Dartmouth. After college, I joined Teach for America, a program that recruits recent graduates to become teachers in the country’s most economically disadvantaged communities. I landed in a middle school in the South Bronx, and worked there for several years. I then worked for a school reform non-profit organization, so I had a career in NYC public education for most of my 20’s.
I decided I wanted to go to film school to combine my art background with some of the stories and issues I was thinking about while teaching and working with young people. So I came to filmmaking on the later side, but the path was paved by other work I’d done and many inspiring experiences. I got a great education in storytelling at Columbia’s MFA film program, and met life-long friends and collaborators. After graduating, I moved out to L.A. I submitted my thesis film, Lambing Season, an off-beat family drama set in Ireland, to the Lexus Short Films competition, and was selected to make GAME with The Weinstein Company.
Tell us about GAME. Where did the idea come from?
JD: I played a lot of sports growing up, and I’ve also had many jobs and experiences in which I’ve observed stark differences between the opportunities and resources for women vs. men. I was actually fired from my first “job” ever as a little kid because I was a girl! The circus came to our town and my best friend and I volunteered up to help set up the tent. We were both strong, active kids, tall for our age, and had matching, very short haircuts… the circus people apparently thought we were boys. When they found out we were girls, we were let go, and we watched as a scrawny boy took our place. I’ll never forget that image.
I was also raised in a very Catholic family but even my young instincts told me something wasn’t right that I couldn’t be an “altar boy” (a role that has since opened up) and women still cannot rise to the highest ranks. Unfortunately, these early impressions of inequality were just the first of many incidents of sexism I’ve experienced or witnessed — on teams, in schools, making movies, and certainly in society. I actually wrote, directed, and finished the post-production of GAME during the final months leading up to our recent presidential election. Like most of the world, I thought we were about to elect the first woman to be president of the United States. We premiered GAME the day after the election, and suddenly the story took on a whole new meaning to me, “locker room talk” and all.
I’m horrified but also motivated by the statistics of women in film, women in sports, women’s lower pay for the same work, and pervasive sexist or misogynistic treatment of women in so many domains. So I wanted to talk about this gender equality topic, but to do it through a character-driven sports film that’s also entertaining and action-packed. I love basketball, and I think it’s an interesting sport for exploring this theme within a team setting.
What I also find interesting is that I go through my life and whatever I’m working on simply thinking of myself as a person, a director, a writer, but it’s others (within a patriarchal society) who label me as a female director, a female writer, a female whatever role, and that’s essentially a marginalization, whether intended or not. I wanted to apply that conflict to the main character in GAME — someone who sees herself as a basketball player, not a female basketball player, and who’s at odds with the heavily gendered world of sports, where opportunities are not equal. I wanted to tell an inspiring story about an ambitious, talented girl who wants to go all the way and ultimately earns the steep first step.
A previous short of yours “Lambing Season” (which is excellent, by the way! — watch it here!) had a somewhat similar theme of “things aren’t quite what they seem.” Is this something that you deliberately seek to explore in your filmmaking?
JD: Thank you! It’s funny… I tend to think of GAME and Lambing Season as such different types of films (a sports film in Los Angeles vs. a family drama on an Irish sheep farm) but yes, there is certainly a thematic overlap. What exists beneath the surface is what really interests me in drama and in life. I’m intrigued by the way people behave and present themselves in public versus their more private selves. There’s often a compelling conflict that arises in that gap, and it can be powerful when people’s true identities emerge — when the masks come off. In both Lambing Season and GAME, the central relationships reflect an optimism about the progress that’s only possible through an honest reconciling of identity.
Was there any consideration given to you being a white filmmaker telling a young black person’s story? Did you seek out any black perspectives or voices during the filmmaking process?
JD: I wrote the script for GAME without specifying race, though like anything, it was surely influenced by my own experience. Many of the characters are loosely drawn from my own life and people I’ve known (of various races). We did a color-blind casting for the lead, and auditioned young women of several ethnicities. Once I cast Nicole, who was the best person for the part, I did want both the Coach character and the story’s antagonist (Collins) to be the same race as her, in order to focus the issue on gender and not on race. So in a sense, I guess we arrived at a predominantly black lead cast, rather than my setting out to tell a black character’s story.
That being said, I do think seriously about representation on screen. I did hope to depart from the trope of the almost constantly white coach in so many sports films I’d been studying as references. I sought out diverse casting for the rest of the team, so there are players of many ethnicities — white, black, Latino, Asian, kids of mixed ethnicities. In terms of exploring perspectives, I did a lot of general basketball research in the writing stage, talking with players and coaches who were black, white, male, female, old, and young.
As I mentioned earlier, I also spent almost a decade working in public education in New York City and was immersed in cultures and experiences that were different from mine. AJ’s character is probably based on my personal hopes, dreams, and experiences more than anything, but I am also inspired by some of my former students when writing and directing teenage characters.
The process of collaborating with the actors themselves was another core step of research for me. One of my biggest priorities in casting was to assemble a team of real basketball players (and obviously having NBA champion-turned-actor Rick Fox as the Coach was an amazing win for the film). A big part of working with actors is finding out their personal connections to the characters’ circumstances, motivations, and the world of the story, and filling or exploring any gaps. I wanted to make each role truthful to the individual inhabiting it. So I tried to find ways each actor related to the story, and at times adjusted what I’d written or allowed for flexibility when the actors offered their own ideas through the rehearsal process and some improv.
We also had an ethnically diverse crew and group of people giving notes on the script and edit. I’m a curious person and I’ve always been interested in the experiences and perspectives of diverse friends and creative collaborators, so working on GAME was no exception. I deeply value the contributions this cast, crew, and research interviewees brought to the script.
What do you think about sport’s relationship with women? From comments of our youth like “you run like a girl,” to real-life situations like tennis player Andy Murray reminding press about women’s accomplishments in the sport, it can feel rather grim.
JD: As in many fields, women athletes tend to be overshadowed by men. People have strong opinions about why that’s the case. It’s a complicated topic, but I don’t accept the knee-jerk, blanket reasoning of biological inferiority. Sure, there are some biological differences, but not across the board, and I think that’s a lazy assessment that perpetuates the status quo. With a few exceptions, the business and culture of sports have been built around men and it’s a monumental challenge to balance that. Progress is slow. Title 9 has helped make strides toward greater equality, but there are limits to its domain, and we’re nowhere near a complete levelling of the playing field.
I watched that Andy Murray interview several times, dumbfounded at the oversight. Collective attitudes and perceptions about women athletes (let alone women in general), are extremely frustrating.
We put together an end montage in GAME to highlight the long-standing history of women’s basketball and its pioneers and stars. I hope part of the film’s impact is a spotlight on the powerful women in sports who often don’t get the recognition they deserve.
Can you tell us about some/all of the other amazing women who worked on this film?
JD: Wow, it’s going to be a long list! I’ll start with Nicole Williams (lead actress “AJ Green”), who was absolutely the heart of the film. Nicole’s discovery is a wild story… The role of AJ was pretty challenging to cast — I lost a lot of sleep over it! When I wrote this role, I knew that whatever actor we found would need to play basketball extremely well, be a good actor, be able to pass sufficiently as a boy, and look high school age. Our terrific casting director mother-daughter duo, Lisa Pantone and Gigi Berry, brought many great women in for this role, including several professional basketball players. Then one day, Gigi was shopping at a clothing store and spotted a tall, muscular, young woman employee who conceivably could look the part. Gigi boldly went up to her and asked if she played basketball (yes — four years at Nevada) and if she ever acted (no) and would she want to come in to audition for this film (sure). And that was Nicole. When Nicole came in to audition, she blew us away.
So many other women have been fundamental to the process of making Game and helping it reach audiences. I’ll start with the women at The Weinstein Company (Zoe Fairbourne, Mallory Snyder Wells, Shea Sinclair, Ayser Salman, Chelsie Dias, Bojana Sandic, Rachel Tynes, Rachel Battaglini, Marissa Moffitt) and Lexus (Mio Wagner) and my manager (Melinda Jason) who have been huge supporters from script to screen. Our casting directors Lisa Pantone and Gigi Berry brought together this dream cast. We had a very talented DP, Paula Huidobro, who has an amazing eye for lighting and framing. She expertly led a huge team in lighting and the camera department (we used two cameras for the basketball sequences), which included several women. Our editor Saira Haider was central to the last phase of writing the story in post-production, and that collaboration was one of the highlights of the film for me. The production designers (duo Cindy Chao and Michele Yu), costume designer (Romy Itzigsohn), and make-up artist (Desiree Falcon) and their respective teams of mostly women all worked tirelessly on a demanding schedule with a large cast. UPM Lizzie Sam pulled together endless logistics with a team of many women in the production department. The first and second ADs (Adi Dardik, Zhandra Reyes), and script supervisor (Gaby Gomez) helped get the film in the can, and post-supervisor (Erica Sterne) and coordinator (Zena Gray) helped us finish the movie on a tight schedule.
It was a joy to work with so many talented women! Out of four directors selected internationally for the Lexus Short Films competition last year, I was the only woman. For numerous reasons, certainly including the nature of GAME’s storyline, there was a big effort to hire women for the key roles.
Tell us about why you are a feminist and why it’s important to your filmmaking.
JD: Feminism means believing in and standing for equality, so anything other than that is a devaluation of half the world’s population. I see feminism as a baseline of human rights — nothing more, nothing less. The alternative is unacceptable.
Filmmaking is a very powerful mode of creative expression and a major influence in popular culture. I give a lot of thought to the types of ideas, messages and representation I put into the world when I write something or make a film. There are so many historical hurdles to overcome in the way women have been treated and depicted, so I find it central to my efforts as a storyteller to work to balance the scales in whatever ways I can. I feel the same way about issues of race, sexuality, class, and populations outside of dominant culture or power.
Who are your favourite women working in the film industry?
JD: Another long list! Jane Campion, Ava DuVernay, Kelly Reichardt, Andrea Arnold, Jill Soloway, Mindy Kaling, Lynne Ramsay, Lisa Cholodenko, Michelle King, Carrie Brownstein, Margaret Cho, Sarah Silverman, Ellen, Kristen Wiig, Shonda Rhimes, Julie Delpy, Lesli Linka Glatter, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Tina Fey, too many brilliant actors to name, and all of the women who are my close friends and colleagues from film school and beyond.
I also admire the many women in the industry who are directly advocating for other women: Geena Davis, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Salke, Reese Witherspoon, Queen Latifah, Freida Pinto, and so many companies and organizations like Tangerine, Gamechanger, Women in Film, and The MUFF Society to name a few!
What’s the best advice about filmmaking you’ve ever received?
JD: Speak from the heart.
What is your favourite nonsense tchotchke that you own?
JD: I won an oosik (walrus penis bone) as the prize for Best Short Film at Anchorage Film Festival. It’s on my mantle. It just looks like a weather-worn stick, but I know the truth.
What are you working on now/next?
JD: I’m writing a feature-length script that builds on the storyline of GAME but is much bigger in scope. I want to make that as my first feature. I also wrote a feature script that’s related to my previous short film, Lambing Season, set in Ireland. It’s called Flock, and I’d love to make that at some soon point too.
Recommend one #MUFFApproved film for our blog readers!
JD: Andrea Arnold’s Wasp. It’s one of my favorite short films.
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