Where did the idea for this film come from and how did it evolve from script to shooting?
So much time has passed from the early seedings of the concept to the actual shoot (almost 13 years), so it’s hard for me to pinpoint the definitive moment this journey began. I guess I could start with the short film... I pitched for the Ben Steiner bursary at Deaffest in 2012 and won £5,000 to make a short film that would premiere there the following year. I went back to my friend and producer (James Tracy), whom I made ‘The End’ with, but he rightfully pointed out that the concept I pitched and essentially won with was pretty thin. So I spent some time coming up with new ideas and nothing seemed to land for us both. In the end I messaged James one logline sentence - ‘a deaf cult that communicates solely in sign language’ and he replied with one word: “Yes!”
A few years prior to that point, I had seen a couple of documentaries on cults that really disturbed me, especially ‘Jonestown’, so cults had been on my mind for a few years prior to 2012. After making the short, I felt quite dissatisfied. Aside from the limitations of making a shoestring short, I felt so much of the concept was left unexplored and something was still niggling at me. So I decided to develop it further and as I continued to work away at the concept over the years, the potential to explore the constructs of our identities, particularly the deaf identity, within the structure of a secluded cult became so much meaningful to me and my own personal experience. The deaf community is quite close knit and small, and I also went to a deaf boarding school for 7 years and that was a very insular experience that I also went back to. I also looked at everything from the history of deaf people, to therapy, more cults and thought control tatics... it was a concept that just kept on giving the more I chipped away at it.
So the short answer is, there are lots of contributing factors that have influenced and snowballed the concept - some personal, some inspired by what I’ve read and seen, and the rest simply happened by chance.
Were there any films that influenced you and/or the cast during development?
Too many to list... I am a huge PTA fan and ‘The Master’ was certainly a big influence, as was Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ as I wanted Chilmark to have an ‘Overlook Hotel’ identity about it. However, most of the detail and cult influences in the story came from non-fiction books and documentaries I saw.
I did give each cast member different films to watch for character references. For example, ‘The Truman show’ was interesting from Matt’s perspective and I told Anna Seymour to look at Lesley Manville in ‘Phantom Thread’ because of her authority and handling of the house. I gave Anne Zander ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ to watch but there were loads more such as ‘Midsommer’. I got Adam Bassett and Tiannah Hodding to watch ‘The Deer Hunter’ for one particular scene. For Sophie Stone (Mia), I gave her a lot of material on ‘The Family’ and Anne Hamilton Byrne because there weren't many films to reference...
When Eva arrives at Chilmark, she is an outsider integrating into a close-knit group and quickly forms a connection with Matt, who has only ever known life at Chilmark but has growing interest in the outside world.
How did you go about exploring the tension between the dichotomy of these two character’s experiences?
Both Matt and Eva are a bit ‘Yin and yang’ when it comes to the deaf identity, two polar opposites who shift and pivot during the course of the story. I think they both see parts of each other they admire and aspire to have or experience. I think Eva feels like she fractured and is caught between two worlds and two identities. Whereas Matt admires the experience and freedom Eva has, both through her journey on the outside but also in discovering (and essentially choosing) her own identity at Chilmark. He’s surrounded by community and has grown up in a world built for him but this has isolated him and he struggles to connect with everyone else’s shared experience. Their perspectives eventually pit themselves against each other, even though I think they care for one another.
Having a ‘choice’ was something that really stood out of me in the script. Especially when thinking about the deaf identity, as a cultural identity. Throughout the story Mia is telling everyone they have a choice... but the choice has been removed from Matt. Something like 95% of deaf people are born to hearing parents and nobody ever really gives us a deaf identity. They certainly don’t give it to you at school because a lot of us have been brought up to ‘fix’ or ‘deny our deafness and assimilate into a predominantly speaking and hearing society. However, at some point in our lives, usually when we gain independence, we get to choose how we define our identity; whether we see ourselves simply not being able to hear or whether we are part of a cultural minority that has it’s own language, history and community that gives us a sense of belonging. Academics refer to it as the medical model and the social model. I won’t bore you with that... but it’s such a complex and fragile concept to tackle narratively and I tried my best to explore it through these characters in a way that was exciting and entertaining.
There were several different sign language languages (British, German, etc.) used on set. Can you describe that experience and any challenges with translation?
From a writing perspective, I can only write in English and sign language can’t be recorded on the page, not in its entirety at least because it’s so visual and detailed. So there is always a translation process from the page to the screen and in the past it was often left to the actor to take this on but now we have consultants and sign language monitors to do this work.
With this project we had so much to consider... I knew that cults create their own shorthand or codespeak and often use language to control. So we had this functional element to explore with Duffy, Daryl Jackson and the main cast when coming up with completely new signs. In addition to the cult talk, I wanted to create an international community as deaf people come from every country in the world and our experiences are often shared no matter what background or culture we are born into - our connection through lived experiences exceeds our differences. So I was excited to open up the character’s nationalities and together we came up with individual language traits but also a community dialect which is what they mostly sign at Chilmark. I’m excited to bring an international identity to this film through both the language and the themes of the story.
Having worked on the film for so long, I actually get caught out for signing chilmark dialect now. It’s so seeped into me, I am fully indoctrinated. It’s all down to the magic the cast have brought to the film... so blame them!
What was an unexpected challenge you encountered in the making of the film and how did you overcome it?
The producers spent a lot of time prior to the production to make sure it was accessible for everyone not just because it was a sign language film and we had deaf people involved in the making of this film but also for the hearing members of the team. Access is a two way street and a lot of the support in place was also for the hearing members of the crew/team - such as whisper/guide tracks and interpreters in all departments to ensure efficient working environments for everyone.
From a technical and artistic perspective, sign language is visual and so you need a lot more coverage than you would normally have in a spoken language film. Although we have offscreen ‘signed’ dialogue, we don’t have the luxury of hearing dialogue over non-sync visuals like most films do. With sign language you need to see it to understand it, or at least reference it somehow. From the very beginning I knew both deaf and hearing people required subtitles, but I am also someone who is passionate about sign language cinema and I see so much potential to kinetically weave the language into the visual grammar of the film. So my shot lists were pretty high and it ate into our schedule a lot. We also lost a DOP shortly before the production so we had to think on our feet a lot of the time. You always want more time on any film but with scenes in sign language, which was for the majority of the film, I really wanted more time to turn the camera round, cover the performances in more detail. We got the coverage we needed in some scenes, but we had to employ guerilla filmmaking sometimes due to the constraints of the schedule. As a filmmaker who strives for visual control, it was hard to adjust to at times but I’ve learnt so much and have gained a lot of wisdom for this particular style of filmmaking.
For most of the deaf cast and myself, we were making our first feature and whilst we all came in relatively green, the crew were also green in a different way as they had never made a film in sign language before. So it was a great challenge for me to be in the middle of it all, not only trying to explain my vision for the film to people who don’t share my life experience or necessarily understand my cinematic style, but to cue camera moves, cue actors, and to just explain certain situations the most collaborative and efficient way possible. I must stress, I don’t want people to think sign language films take longer to make and are therefore more expensive but there are factors to consider that are logistical, technical and circumstantial. We all learnt a lot but the challenges for deaf actors and filmmakers like myself, is that for every project we move on to, we always have to start from square one. We’ll gain experience but we can’t bring the same crew with us on each project and we won’t always work with the same people. The industry has practices and conventions that are decades old and we have to work hard to bring our own way of making films into this collective experience. By the end of the shoot the cast and crew on Retreat were working together seamlessly having adjusted to the new ways of working needed for this film. As more films in sign language are made, hopefully crews can take this experience forward and set some standards for the industry.
Post-production was a very positive experience. I was lucky to have a dream team, it was such a collaborative experience and we weren’t as constrained by time. My editor Adliena Bichis was amazing, she really understood me as a filmmaker, understood the characters, what we were trying to say with this story and the cinematic experience we wanted to create. She didn’t use the voiceover guide track, which we recorded on set for the hearing crew members. Instead she used subtitles and focused on the visual performances of the actors. The result hopefully speaks for itself but it was such an enjoyable experience to work alongside her.
As we moved into sound design and the score, Paul Davis and his team, as well as our composer Adam Janota Bzowski, were a joy to work with. I actually felt my deafness during the mix at times, because I obviously don’t hear in the same way as everyone else in the room did, but I was pretty clear in what I was gunning for and my sense of direction in terms of style, tone and texture was intact. I also had my producer Michelle and Adelina coming back to assist us and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved collectively. The film is definitely a sonic experience as much as it is visual.
What was it like working with the cast? Did their personal experiences influence their characters or storylines at all?
As filmmakers, actors or anything creative, we always bring our own personal experiences to our work if it resonates or applies to the scenes or characters at play. I’ve poured a lot of my own and other people’s experiences into scenes and characters but they are personal to us. Hopefully it shines through authentically in the performances but the film is definitely full of secrets.
I love working with deaf actors and I know a lot of the actors in our community. I watch them as much as I can - whether it’s in the theatre or on screen. Sophie Stone has been my muse from day one. She was a part of the short film and that is where our journey really began. Having seen Sophie’s career develop over the years I was constantly frustrated, not just because I was dying to work with her again, but Sophie’s best work was on the stage and I don’t think everyone gets how special she really is. So I was very motivated to write a juicy role for her and bring her special talent to the big screen. Sophie was constantly there from the beginning, sharing ideas with me, answering my questions and she’d often challenge me with her own questions. Like Sophie, Anne Zander has played such a pivotal part in the development of Eva. She came on board in 2019 after I opened up the role to international actors and she also became something of a muse for me. We spent a lot of time talking about Eva, her backstory, the way she thinks and how she would approach certain situations. Sophie and Anne gave me a lot of energy and motivation to keep going and it’s been a privilege to have written for them both. After a few years of development, I knew my characters so well, they ended up telling me what to write. This is the best experience a writer can have, when you’re no longer trying to force scenes out or come up with exciting stuff to write. You just become an observer, following these complex people you’ve crested, almost as if you’re in a lucid dream. That’s when I know I am on to something, when it’s no longer ‘work’.
The rest of the cast were brought together through auditions set up by Heather Barton and whilst most of them were actors I knew of, we found some amazing new talents such as Anna Seymour, who moved to London from Australia a few years ago. Like Anna, Tinnah Hodding blew us away in auditions and is
such an amazing talent. And then there is Naomi Potsawa who I was also writing for. She was a kid when I started writing Martha and I had to bump up her age with each draft.
James was a newcomer and one of the last people we cast for the film. Heather and the team were sure we had found our last lead and, despite it being such a big role for him to take on so early in his career, he gave it everything. Whenever I watch the film I am really taken back by his screen presence and how much he can convey with just a look or a reaction. I don’t think you can teach or cultivate that kind of talent... you either have it or you don’t, and I think he has so much potential going forward in his career. I’m so proud of him and what he has accomplished with Matt. The production is unique in a number of ways, including the deaf characters being portrayed by members of the deaf community.
Can you discuss what that means to you in terms of representation on screen and how did it impact how you approached shooting?
Well, I’ve gone on record before saying that being deaf isn’t enough when it comes to acting and deaf portrayals. Although representation does matter to me, I still stand by that statement because the cast you see on screen are actors... really, really good actors and yes they happen to be deaf too, but for me, the actor always comes first. We also don’t have that many actors to choose from in our community, so with my casting director, Heather Baston, we cast openly for all of the roles that we auditioned for and only listed age range and linguistic ability. We never reference race because I know the playing field relatively well and knew that we’d find the best actors if we cast the net wide and not be too specific when it comes to character descriptions.
I see authentic portrayals and representation as separate things. It’s great that we bring representation to the deaf community and I know it will mean a lot to people, but I don’t go into my films with this at the forefront of my mind. I strive for authenticity and the best possible way to tell the story. I’m also quite pragmatic and I try to compartmentalise several factors that aren’t specific to the fact that someone is deaf. For example, linguistic ability... you will meet deaf people who can’t sign or haven’t had the opportunity to learn and you will meet hearing people who’ll sign better than many deaf people - whether they’ve mastered the language professionally or they happen to be CODAS. Whilst sign language is our language, it belongs to the deaf community, isn’t exclusive to deaf people. However, there are intrinsic details that only a deaf actor can bring to a role. This can be as subtle as how they can exist in a room, where their eyes are averted to at any given moment or how they physically adapt in spaces with their body. There is so much detail in the performances of the cast and it is just a joy to experience. I tried to write as much as I could into the script but the actors brought so much more and it’s amazing to experience on a big screen.
Whilst the majority of the cast is deaf, a handful of the SAs in the film are not, as we needed to cast our SAs locally for budgetary reasons, and Bryson, who plays The Boy, isn’t deaf but as it was a non-signing role, I felt it was pragmatic for me to direct a child actor verbally. Bryson was such a joy to work with and was such an amazing presence on set. We gave him and his brother each a sign name and he was constantly picking up signs, even though he didn’t have any dialogue in the film.
How did you approach and utilize sound throughout the film to amplify the characters and drive the story?
I knew I wanted to explore phantom sounds and had written a lot of sound detail into the script but the way in which films capture the deaf people through sounds is interesting and often tokenistic. When I was writing the script I kept the tropey ‘POV’ sound of deaf people to a minimum and used it only in places where it worked for the theme. In some scenes I was going for chaos and overlapping spoken dialogue but we actually ended up going the opposite way and I think we’ve taken the ‘deaf sound trope’ to a contemporary place which is exciting. In films such as ‘Children of a Lesser God’, the characters are more or less translated by a speaking character (Hurt), but in others, such as ‘The Tribe’, it’s more observational and they didn’t even subtitle the film to preserve that immersive, observational experience. I feel like we’ve found a middle ground because we hear a lot more than you would normally do in a film with deaf characters. I’m a sucker for montage and I wanted my camera to be free to roam and capture faces reacting to moments, so I knew we needed quite an intimate sound of our characters. We captured and mixed the characters so that we hear their voices or whisperings as they signed, whether it’s intelligible or just to reference them, and I’ve never gone into such detail like that before. We all had a blast in ADR and the actors were just incredible. Having such experienced and talented sound design artists has really elevated this film to another level and it’s been incredible to work with this team.
What do you want audiences to take away from this?
Well it’s funny, I always feel like I have two audiences... my community (the deaf community) and now the mainstream and at times that has been a struggle when writing stories. I generally hope everyone feels entertained and excited about the prospects of sign language cinema, as I think there’s so much potential in making films like this from both an artistic and technical perspective. I hope deaf people feel seen and if they want to delve deeper and think about our identities in more detail... then that’s great but more than anything, I just want everyone to enjoy a cinematic experience.
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