Toronto After Dark 2016 Profile: Jody Wilson
“Being a feminist is not a choice, it’s a duty, one that I take very seriously.”
Indigo is a short film about a troubled young man, Takumi, and his relationship with the world he lives in. Diagnosed with several mental and social illnesses at a young age, Takumi becomes a recluse who after the death of his parents, develops a deeply emotional and very real relationship with his toy robot, Doka. After years of waiting for a signal from home, Takumi and Doka receive a message that they will be returning to their home planet. Suddenly, Takumi is faced with the choice to follow his cosmic destiny or pursue the love of his life, his neighbour Yoshimi, here on earth.
Indigo will be having its Canadian Premiere at this year’s Toronto After Dark, but it has already screened at a number of festivals worldwide, including: Oldenburg International Film Festival, Bucheon Internation Fantastic Film Festival, Marfa Film Festival, Big Island Film Festival, Fantaspoa, Boston Science Fiction Film Festival, and more! So far on its festival run, Indigo has won the awards for Best Sci-Fi at Hollyshorts Film Festival, Best Sci-Fi Short at FilmQuest, and Best Narrative Short at Nonplussed Fest.
You can see Indigo at this year’s Toronto After Dark, screening in front of The Master Cleanse at 7:00pm on October 20th. GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.
TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF AND HOW YOU GOT INVOLVED WITH FILMMAKING.
Jody Wilson: I grew up in a small mountain town in Alberta where I spent a lot of my early teenager years in the ‘90s walking around the snowy streets at night with my walkman on listening to artists like Daft Punk, Moby, Wutang, and Bjork. I would kind of zone out and see moving pictures in my head to the music, a lot of weird and psychedelic shit… Chris Cunnigham-style alien robot sci-fi type stuff. I was convinced I wanted to make music videos and write screenplays. I moved to Vancouver and went to film school, then to LA and directed a few music videos and got into visual effects production (CGI) at one of the big studios called Digital Domain, where I still work.
TELL US A BIT ABOUT INDIGO. WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM?
JW: Indigo is a story about a boy who experienced serious trauma at a young age. He grows up being diagnosed with mental illness and is prescribed a variety of drugs from different doctors. Indigo is told through his perspective, about his obsessions, coping mechanisms, and what is real to him, even if it’s not what the rest of the world sees. The idea came from the notion that we really don’t know what’s going on in someone’s world — especially those who have been labelled “sick” or “mentally un-well” — maybe there is more going on behind the scenes than science can explain? Or maybe not, and they are just really convincing hallucinations.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CREATE A FILM IN JAPANESE, A FOREIGN LANGUAGE THAT YOU DO NOT SPEAK?
JW: I didn’t even think twice about it being Japanese, and sometimes now I look back and wonder how it came about in my mind. I think it made it more believable — these fantastical elements like a talking robot companion and an alien home world — a suspension of disbelief that comes easy when watching a foreign language film, specifically a Miyazaki animated film like Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. Because you can’t fully identify with the world, you allow yourself to believe it’s true. I used this as a base to tell a complex and an otherwise unbelievable story by making it like a live action Japanese graphic novel.
GIVEN THAT YOUR MAIN CHARACTER TAKUMI IS DIAGNOSED WITH A VARIETY OF SOCIAL AND MENTAL ILLNESSES BY A NUMBER OF DOCTORS, DO YOU WANT VIEWERS OF INDIGO TO COME WITH ANY KIND OF MESSAGE ON MENTAL HEALTH?
JW: I think what Indigo does is portrays someone dealing with trauma through a somewhat playful and colorful lens. Not saying there is anything colorful and playful about mental illness, but it was my way of painting a dark picture using a neon color pallet. Adding a dimension of fantasy to what we think we know about mental illness when, in fact, we know very little about our brains and our souls and the origin of the “disease” and just how deep (and inter-dimensional) the wounds can be.
THERE ARE A LOT OF COMPONENTS TO THIS SHORT. WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF THE PRODUCTION?
JW: The most challenging part of production came in post, trying to work in the voice-over to the edit. Shooting had its challenges, but my whole team was so talented and amazing and fun to work with, that we seemed to flow past anything that stood in the way. My two lead actors, Kohei Shinokazi and Elizabeth Davison, were so naturally gifted and organic, they made everything about shooting this film amazing. I had the best producer, Marc Petey, and our D.P. (his identical twin Ryan) could literally read my mind, which made things run smooth. But you asked about the challenges, and there were many, but it was such a dream to shoot that even the hardships felt fun. We lost a day’s worth of footage which we had to edit around in post. Okay I lied, that part wasn’t fun.
YOUR FILM RELIES ON BOTH CHILD AND ADULT ACTORS TO PLAY THE SAME CHARACTERS AT DIFFERENT AGES. HOW DID THE CASTING AND DIRECTING EXPERIENCE DIFFER BETWEEN THE TWO?
JW: Just like the conception of the story, Yoshimi was the first character cast and I found her (Elizabeth) the day I started looking to find her. She was the only person I saw for this role, because you just know when ya know (ya know?). With the help of my casting director, Keiko Boxall, we saw a lot of young half-Asian girls who looked like a child version of Elizabeth and lucked out when we finally met Kori, who played young Yoshimi. Same thing with Takumi and his younger version: we went to a Japanese school here in Vancouver and did an open casting with the kids, looking for a younger version of Kohei.
IN YOUR DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT, YOU STATE THAT INDIGO IS WHAT YOU LIKE TO CALL “NU-SCIENCE FICTION”. CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THAT?
JW: There is a genre of music called “Nu-Metal” that merges elements of heavy metal with other genres like hip hop and alternative that influenced the “Nu” part of the name. I’ve never considered my work to be fully sci-fi. Although woven with fantastical and spacey elements, there is a realism that ties everything back down to earth. That to me is Nu-Science Fiction, so I made it up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
TELL US ABOUT WHY YOU ARE A FEMINIST AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO YOUR FILMMAKING.
TW: Being a feminist is not a choice, it’s a duty, one that I take very seriously. It’s about personal empowerment that sets an example of what it means to be a confident female in both work and personal life. A part of which is embracing your sensitivities and emphatic nature as a tool of influence instead of as a weakness. As a director, being sensitive can be your greatest weapon, but like a double edged sword, it can be used against you if you aren’t careful.
Being a feminist is trusting your emotions and also taking the opportunity to build up other women. It’s not taking any shit from anyone and not letting anyone tell you what kind of characters to write and if your film will appeal to a male audience or not. I like to empower female characters in less obvious ways. My female leads are heroes who represent the full spectrum of femininity: women who use their own darkness as motivation…and I think that is very powerful.
IF A MOVIE ABOUT YOUR LIFE WERE CREATED, WHO WOULD STAR AS YOU AND WHAT GENRE WOULD IT BE?
JW: Because she is an amazing character actor who could easily play a sensitive but tough alien cowboy who lives alone in the woods with space horses on a distant planet, I’d choose Jennifer Lawrence to play me. It would be like a sad western love story meets Royal Tenenbaums: Battle for Endor.
WHO ARE YOUR FAVOURITE WOMEN WORKING IN THE FILM INDUSTRY?
JW: I’m a huge fan of the cinematographers Maryse Alberti (The Wrestler, Creed) and Natasha Braier (The Neon Demon). Then there is the obvious, like Diablo Cody, Sofia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow, Kimberly Ane Peirce, all women who I think are pioneers and ridiculous forces of talent. Tilda Swinton is probably my favorite actor.
WHAT FILM OR TELEVISION CHARACTER WOULD YOU LOVE TO SEE GET A GENDER SWAP?
JW: I would like to see the little crew of boys from Stranger Things be a rough, smart-ass group of girls. That would be rad. Also I think it would be cool if Kevin Spacey’s character in House of Cards was a female but Robin Wright’s character remained the same. They would be America’s first openly gay presidential couple and I think it would work pretty well… “President Francesca Underwood — the most powerful power lesbian on the planet.”
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NEXT? WILL YOU CONTINUE TO WRITE AND DIRECT?
JW: Oh, yes. I have three feature projects in development. One about an animal empath vigilante named Roux who lives with a herd of desert elephants in Africa and protects them from poachers. The second is about a forbidden love affair between a human refugee and an alien princess named Caxa. My goal is to never stop making films that make people feel things.
RECOMMEND ONE #MUFFAPPROVED FILM FOR OUR BLOG READERS:
JW: A film I recently saw and loved is Park Chan Wook’s latest, The Handmaiden, which I thought was incredibly feminist, albeit from a male point of view. It was my favorite film of the festival season. I’ve had some heated discussions about this with other female friends, who saw the film and disagree with my views about it being feminist, but I think there is room for all types of feminist view points — anything that empowers women and provides a strong female presence, to me, is feminist.
Follow Jody on Twitter and Instagram.
You can also follow Indigo’s official website and Facebook for up-to-date info on the film.
Lisa Gallagher is the Producer of The MUFF Society in Toronto and the Social Media Coordinator for Toronto After Dark Film Festival. She is a lover of cats, carbs, and laying down.
Follow her on Instagram and Letterboxd.
