Speaker 1: Hold you is it show?
Speaker 2: People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they are cold sodas,
Speaker 3: hot popcorn and no monsters.
Speaker 4: In the Protection Booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 1: No, no.
Speaker 4: You might be asking yourself, what is this lady doing? Well,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to but no, no come near me,
Speaker 4: because I was think, don't come a girl, don't love
Speaker 4: a girl?
Speaker 3: Oh need the lover.
Speaker 2: There are some things in life worth more than just
Speaker 2: carnal pleasure.
Speaker 4: Grieved.
Speaker 1: I want to shower in your.
Speaker 3: I want to pick up a piece of your pool.
Speaker 1: And eat it like a banana.
Speaker 3: M h.
Speaker 1: When you really love some what you do that of God?
Speaker 4: Know they just just did up.
Speaker 1: Love And so you love me and say your naby.
Speaker 3: Great take it.
Speaker 2: Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I am
Speaker 2: talking with writer, director, producer, probably yes, definitely star all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff. She's a one woman powerhouse, Grace Glowiki,
Speaker 2: and she is back with a new film called Dead Lover.
Speaker 2: The aesthentic of this film really scratches an inch that
Speaker 2: I have for this kind of artifice and playing with
Speaker 2: the frame that I just really enjoy. Great movie as well,
Speaker 2: pretty over the top all the stuff that I love
Speaker 2: about movies. Definitely check it out if you get a chance.
Speaker 2: Might not be for everybody, but a definitely was for me.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 2: the interview. You have told a lot more than directing,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious just how you decided to get into
Speaker 2: entertainment at all.
Speaker 4: I know it's such a crazy choice to make for
Speaker 4: one's life. How did I? I think, Well, I went
Speaker 4: to McGill and I was studying art history, and I
Speaker 4: remember being in college and being like, what am I
Speaker 4: going to do? And then on a whim, I saw
Speaker 4: an auditioned sign up sheet for a play and I
Speaker 4: just put my name on the list, showed up, didn't
Speaker 4: know how to act, didn't know what I was doing,
Speaker 4: but ended up getting a part in this play, and
Speaker 4: I just sort of fell in love with equal parts
Speaker 4: the camaraderie you feel when you're making a piece of
Speaker 4: performance for an audience and also the kind of rebellious
Speaker 4: feeling of being vulnerable and being watched by a group
Speaker 4: of people. So I think, you know, kind of chasing
Speaker 4: that live performance high, but also the like feeling of
Speaker 4: being a part of a troop. Maybe, so I think
Speaker 4: that that's kind of the double edged sword of what
Speaker 4: got me.
Speaker 2: And then writing and directing was that's just kind of
Speaker 2: a natural progression where you like, I really want to
Speaker 2: try this out. I want to see how this is
Speaker 2: wearing these hats as well.
Speaker 4: It partially came from trying to be a actor in
Speaker 4: a more conventional sense and not feeling as though the
Speaker 4: rules that were coming my way were full I was
Speaker 4: able to fully express myself through them, so I started
Speaker 4: to kind of make my own stuff as a way
Speaker 4: to solve that problem. So I think, yeah, it was
Speaker 4: kind of born of the necessity of wanting to express
Speaker 4: myself as an actor. Is how I've found myself to
Speaker 4: be a filmmaker. Yeah, so it's sort of a strange
Speaker 4: way into it, but I have since like so fallen
Speaker 4: in love with the filmmaking process, directing and writing and
Speaker 4: all of that. So yeah, I'm happy to kind of
Speaker 4: do both.
Speaker 2: I love your feature work where it's the smaller two
Speaker 2: person four person type casts. I mean, is that again
Speaker 2: just how hard it is to make a movie and
Speaker 2: it's easier with smaller troops or how was that?
Speaker 4: That's where it comes from. I think is just being
Speaker 4: used to not having resources to work with, and so
Speaker 4: you kind of start to understand that the less people
Speaker 4: you make something with, the cheaper it is, the more
Speaker 4: manageable it is. So it comes from that place kind
Speaker 4: of out of necessity, but because I've done it now
Speaker 4: quite a few times of just like movies with two
Speaker 4: characters or four characters, like Dead Lover, it's nice because
Speaker 4: you really get to put pressure on the protagon, like
Speaker 4: it's a real direct expiration of a protagonist because there's
Speaker 4: this one. If it's one other character, there's one other
Speaker 4: force pushing against them. So there's a nice sort of
Speaker 4: focus and precision and balance to it when it's just
Speaker 4: a couple actors or two actors.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, you work a lot with this Ben
Speaker 2: Petrie guy. What's a story with him?
Speaker 4: So he's my husband, he's in the other room. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So we we have just been working since we've been
Speaker 4: together romantically, we've also been collaborating, so it's very intertwined
Speaker 4: our lives and our collaboration, and I think what's drawn
Speaker 4: us together as people and as collaborators is we're very different,
Speaker 4: but I think we have a high regard and respect
Speaker 4: for each other's point of view in each other's brain.
Speaker 4: So it's this great balance of you know, the friction
Speaker 4: of two opposing things, but the desire to stay connected
Speaker 4: through collaboration. So yeah, it's just been such a joy
Speaker 4: working with him. Very unusual, of course, working with your
Speaker 4: husband in this capacity, but it's been so special.
Speaker 2: Tell me about something like shooting Tito, for example, So
Speaker 2: are you shooting all day and then you have to
Speaker 2: go home with him at night and then like are
Speaker 2: you just talking about the movie all the time or
Speaker 2: do you take a break?
Speaker 4: You know, we try to take breaks, but we stopped,
Speaker 4: like we try to. We used to try to compartmentalize
Speaker 4: it and be like, Okay, we're going to not talk
Speaker 4: about work whatever. But the truth is we're both obsessed
Speaker 4: with filmmaking and we're both obsessed with the projects we make.
Speaker 4: So after a while we just kind of let it
Speaker 4: be free and it weaves itself in what feels like
Speaker 4: every hour, you know, within an hour of us hanging out,
Speaker 4: it would be really rare for us to not bring
Speaker 4: up something related to work. Just because that's how our
Speaker 4: brains are both working as individuals. We love we love movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and where do the does an idea like dead
Speaker 2: Lever come from?
Speaker 4: So it actually was developed in kind of a strange
Speaker 4: process where I was talking to Ben and another three
Speaker 4: people in individual conversations over the course of like two
Speaker 4: year years where I didn't really know what I wanted
Speaker 4: to make next, so but I knew I really wanted
Speaker 4: to be collaborative. So in these conversations we would just
Speaker 4: talk about different characters, different environments, different plots for movies,
Speaker 4: and just slowly orally started to build a story of
Speaker 4: this grave digger. So it came it was born of
Speaker 4: this collaborate, these oral brain jam sessions with these people.
Speaker 4: Someone was like, what about a grave Digger? And you know,
Speaker 4: it's all just kind of spiraled from there.
Speaker 2: Who would you say were some of your biggest influences
Speaker 2: or who are you fan of?
Speaker 4: I grew up on really like big comedies like I
Speaker 4: Love Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Monty Python, and SNL. Mel Brooks.
Speaker 4: So I think those were the guiding lights where these
Speaker 4: bigger comedies that I grew up with in the nineties and.
Speaker 2: Then something like dead Lower has such a great look
Speaker 2: to it. How do you come up with that? How
Speaker 2: do you get that design in your head?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that came from my love of theater and
Speaker 4: my love of performance. And whenever I go to like
Speaker 4: a black box theater show and it's just an actor
Speaker 4: in a spotlight, I'm always kind of amazed at how
Speaker 4: I find that so visually compelling, and it's enough stimulus
Speaker 4: for me and I don't need anything else. And so
Speaker 4: I kind of got in my head of why can't
Speaker 4: you translate that in the medium of film, like the
Speaker 4: minimalism of live performance, and or there's these great images
Speaker 4: of Iggy Pop performing on stage in the seventies and
Speaker 4: it's just him in a spotlight, but he's got like
Speaker 4: a silver glove, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the
Speaker 4: most amazing. These are the most amazing images. So it
Speaker 4: came from that place. Levy needs stripped down live performance
Speaker 4: images of act performers in spotlight. But then also I
Speaker 4: would then meet rain Vermet, the cinema photographer of this film,
Speaker 4: and would see her movie called Saint Anne, which played
Speaker 4: at TIFF in the New York Film Fest, and she
Speaker 4: just has this incredible ability to on sixteen millimeter film
Speaker 4: like shoots stuff where it's surrounded by blackness, but there's colors,
Speaker 4: different back lights to different front lights, and so it
Speaker 4: was kind of a mashup of that inspiration and then
Speaker 4: meeting this woman who was like so amazing at these
Speaker 4: stripped down kind of Kenneth Anger style images.
Speaker 2: And then how is it directing yourself and especially all
Speaker 2: that makeup and costume they have to put on.
Speaker 4: Because I did it in Tito as well, I'm used
Speaker 4: to directing myself, so I find it actually quite natural
Speaker 4: to do it, And I always say, in some ways
Speaker 4: it feels more economical and easier because you don't have
Speaker 4: to negotiate with your lead performer as a director when
Speaker 4: it's also you, So it ends up making things kind
Speaker 4: of go faster, and you can direct from the front
Speaker 4: seat of the protagonist. So in a way I find
Speaker 4: it easy and maybe easier than negotiating with a director.
Speaker 4: Like when I'm acting in collaboration with the director, I
Speaker 4: find that more difficult than directing myself. So I really
Speaker 4: enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: How long did it take to actually take that lover
Speaker 2: from conception to what we see now?
Speaker 4: Oh, gosh, those conversations with friends I mentioned probably started
Speaker 4: two three years before shooting, and then yeah, the edit
Speaker 4: would be a year and a half, so you know,
Speaker 4: the all together, it's been feels like it's been five
Speaker 4: years maybe, And you tell me.
Speaker 2: About the music. I really love the score.
Speaker 4: Meg Remy from US Girls did the score. I came
Speaker 4: to her with like a more or less finished film
Speaker 4: with about forty five minutes of temp tracks in it,
Speaker 4: ranging through all like all different genres and stuff, and
Speaker 4: was like, oh gosh, like Meg, what what are we
Speaker 4: going to do? How are we going to fill all
Speaker 4: of these holes? And she's a really brilliant artist, and
Speaker 4: we ended up approaching it kind of like a collage
Speaker 4: where she said we could use her for any song
Speaker 4: from her first three albums, scraps of unpublished songs from
Speaker 4: her old hard drives, and then she had the idea
Speaker 4: of using public domain wax cylinder tracks, which are free,
Speaker 4: and then she had this one new track you got everything,
Speaker 4: And so from these piles of sounds, Meg and I
Speaker 4: just threw stuff on the movie and started to try
Speaker 4: to make patterns and themes out of these different piles.
Speaker 4: So we really thought of it as a collage, which
Speaker 4: is a testament to the way Meg's brain works. And yeah,
Speaker 4: I love what she did with it.
Speaker 2: I love how hands on you are with all of
Speaker 2: this stuff, working with your composer like that, and then
Speaker 2: you we even co.
Speaker 4: Edited this, yes, yes? Or no? This one?
Speaker 1: Did?
Speaker 4: I do I have an Ivan credit? I don't know, honestly,
Speaker 4: I'm blanking.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm I must be thinking of Tito. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so this one I don't. This is Lev Lewis,
Speaker 4: who did an amazing job Tito. I co edited with
Speaker 4: Brendan Mills. Yeah, I love editing. For this one, I
Speaker 4: was like, hey, I'm gonna try to not edit and
Speaker 4: try to learn about the collaboration between a director and
Speaker 4: an editor. And Lev was amazing and really rigorous with
Speaker 4: the footage, and he's really good at making things make
Speaker 4: sense and making things be concise. But he also has
Speaker 4: this he's a composer himself, so he brought this wonderful
Speaker 4: sonic knowledge to his cutting. And I love sound too,
Speaker 4: so together we did all of the sound effects in
Speaker 4: the film, of which there's tons. Yeah. The interplay of
Speaker 4: like sound work and cutting with Lev is that line
Speaker 4: is really permeable. Between those two things, and yeah, he
Speaker 4: absolutely nailed it.
Speaker 2: When did you first get to see this with an audience?
Speaker 4: Like, we did a lot of chest screenings with groups
Speaker 4: up to about twenty twenty people, so if we don't
Speaker 4: count that, the first time I saw it with an
Speaker 4: audience was sun Dance at that first screening of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was that experience?
Speaker 4: Like? It was really interesting actually because there was a
Speaker 4: lot of walkouts. You're so nervous as the filmmaker, and
Speaker 4: you're like, please love it, please love it, and then
Speaker 4: you just start to hear that door open and close,
Speaker 4: open and close, and you know, as people walking out,
Speaker 4: and it's difficult to screen a film, especially you know,
Speaker 4: at a big film festival like that. But I knew
Speaker 4: thet I knew Sundance loved the film, so that and
Speaker 4: were they were really championing the film. So it was
Speaker 4: kind of just a confrontation of this film is not
Speaker 4: for everyone. And that's a hard lesson to learn when
Speaker 4: you're like, you know, sleep deprived and you have out
Speaker 4: you know, you're high up in the Sundance Hills and
Speaker 4: all of this. So I would say I don't like
Speaker 4: the first screening of any of my films, and this
Speaker 4: one in particular was hard with the walkouts. It's all
Speaker 4: good stuff, and the film would then continue to play
Speaker 4: and kind of find its audience a little more where
Speaker 4: people had heard about it and like, oh, I really
Speaker 4: want to go see that. Where I think the first
Speaker 4: screening at Sundance, it's a lot of people trying to
Speaker 4: buy films, and this film is definitely not like an
Speaker 4: obvious like moneymaker or anything like that. So yeah, it
Speaker 4: was interesting that that premiere. But I love Sundance and
Speaker 4: they were they were so supportive of the of the film.
Speaker 4: It was like kN you Tanny like came out and
Speaker 4: like was like we love Deadlove you know. So it
Speaker 4: was so great, but it's very vulnerable those first showings.
Speaker 4: Even the second screening at Sunday, it's like I don't
Speaker 4: even remember if there was any walk ups. Like, so
Speaker 4: after that first one then it felt like it found
Speaker 4: its flow. I think it played two more times at Sundance.
Speaker 4: Both times it was awesome, lots of laughting, and then
Speaker 4: it would go to Rotterdam and that was really positive
Speaker 4: south By, you know, so it I think it was
Speaker 4: just that first one that was difficult, and then it
Speaker 4: seems like People. It kind of found its flow after
Speaker 4: that first one.
Speaker 2: What's next for the movie.
Speaker 4: It's going to be playing at IFC in New York
Speaker 4: about mid March, so we're gonna go there, and then
Speaker 4: it'll play at Lemielle Glendale in end of March, in
Speaker 4: La some Almo Draft Houses, the Review Theater in Toronto,
Speaker 4: so it'll have a little theatrical tour, often with the
Speaker 4: Stinkle Vision cards, so the film is being played in
Speaker 4: stinkle Vision where we pass out these cards and then
Speaker 4: you scratch and sniff along with the film and smell
Speaker 4: these disgusting smells, which has been really fun. Yeah, So
Speaker 4: that's what's.
Speaker 2: Next, and what's next for you.
Speaker 4: What's next for me is I'm writing my next movie,
Speaker 4: a very slow process, not so dissimilar from writing this one,
Speaker 4: where I'm just talking to a lot of different people,
Speaker 4: collecting ideas and trying to develop a central protagonist that
Speaker 4: I'll build a film around. So nothing clear to report,
Speaker 4: but just in the process of trying to get the
Speaker 4: next one cooking.
Speaker 2: And then you're still acting as well as writing all this.
Speaker 4: Yes I am, yes, I'd usually do you know, a
Speaker 4: couple films a year just as an actor. In someone
Speaker 4: else's movie. So, talking right now to Mary Dottoman who
Speaker 4: directed me and Booger, we might do another project together
Speaker 4: and then the Canadian filmmakers. So yeah, I try to
Speaker 4: keep the muscles working a little bit by acting in
Speaker 4: someone else's film, twen directing my own.
Speaker 2: Is there a good place for people to keep up
Speaker 2: with you and your work?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they could go to the Dead Lover film Instagram
Speaker 4: page and there will be all updates about Dead Lover
Speaker 4: and sometimes if I'm in another film, we'll throw something
Speaker 4: up on there, So that would be a great place
Speaker 4: to go to keep in the loop.
Speaker 2: Well, Grace, thank you so much for your time. It
Speaker 2: was such a pleasure talking with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so nice talking to you, Mike. Thank you.
Speaker 5: I love the dead before their clue, the blooming fleshful meet.
Speaker 3: Hod upon me.
Speaker 4: Nothing.
Speaker 5: I love the dead before they rise, No farewells, no goodbyes.
Speaker 1: I never even knew you are now running the face.
Speaker 5: While friends and lovers mourn your silly grave. I have
Speaker 5: other uses for you, darling.
Speaker 1: Stand stand, did Donna take care?
Speaker 3: Did take.
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 1: Take it? H I love the data before that they're
Speaker 1: brewing fresh hot meat out to have her eyes, the
Speaker 1: fun mesic