Filmmaker Focus: Em Weinstein

Writer-director Em Weinstein's short film In France Michelle Is a Man's Name premiered in August at the Outfest Los Angeles Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Narrative Short. Shot on location in Oregon, the film focuses on Michael (Ari Damasco), a young trans man who returns to his rural home and attempts to reconnect with his mother and father (Olga Sanchez and Jerry Carlton, respectively). Following an uneasy dinner, Michael joins his dad for a drive, but their early bonding soon gives way to a chasm of misunderstanding.

Sponsored by Panavision and Light Iron, the Grand Jury Prize was accompanied by a grant for a Panavision camera package and Light Iron finishing services that Weinstein can use on their next project. Finding out about the award was such an amazing gift, Weinstein shares. It felt like this incredible affirmation that this movie had been seen and that it had had an impact, which is all we really wanted when we made it.

Panavision recently spoke with Weinstein about the film, their inspirations, and what might be next for the writer-director.

Panavision: At what point did you know you wanted to make a career of telling stories as a writer and director?

Em Weinstein: My mom is a playwright and an actor, and I grew up watching her work and sitting in her greenrooms in little downtown New York theater spaces. I had thought I wanted to be an actor, but when I was 10 years old, I had surgery for a brain tumor and was bedridden and in a wheelchair for many months. I started to write from my bed, and I wrote my first play, a comedy called A Fly in My Soup. It was not good. [Laughs.] But from then on I knew I wanted to be a writer and director, and I've been aiming for this ever since.

Film came to me only recently. I was in grad school for theater directing at Yale School of Drama, which is a very theater-focused directing program, and I found myself hungry to tell stories in different ways and to reach audiences I felt my plays weren't reaching. So I made my first short when I was at grad school and have been focused on filmmaking as well as theater since then. In France Michelle Is a Man's Name felt like my first major foray into cinematic storytelling because it is so visual and has so few words. It felt like I wasn't using the same toolkit as I did as a theater director.

Were there any particular stories that inspired you in those early days?

Weinstein: I went to a Shakespeare camp in Mount Washington when I was in second and third grade; I completely fell in love with Shakespeare from about age 7. He has been the storyteller who's inspired me the most. Especially as a nonbinary gender-questioning human being, I've found so much of myself in his stories, which are extremely queer. I find the way he conceptualized gender to be quite radical and forward thinking, especially in his plays where men play women playing men. His ideas around the fluidity of gender identity and sexuality probably inspired me without my realizing it as a little kid, and they continue to.

Have you had any mentors along the way?

Weinstein: I continuously find mentors in unexpected places. I directed a production of Twelfth Night with teenagers this year, and I was so inspired by the kids I worked with and every time I teach I feel like I'm being mentored by the students. I had a philosophy professor named Nalini Bhushan in college who completely blew my mind around what thinking is and what literature is. And my mom is an amazing playwright who mostly does social-justice work in the theater now; she's been a great mentor for me.

There's also an incredible Russian theater director named Dmitry Krymov. When I was in grad school, he would come and visit once a year and teach us about visual storytelling onstage. He really believes in the power of telling a story with very few words. He's taught me a lot about being a filmmaker even though he's never made a film.

Is there a balance you hope to maintain between theater and film?

Weinstein: Right now, theater is not happening in the same way that it was, but I do hope to find a balance. I hope to bring some of what I've learned as a filmmaker to my theater practice because I want theater to be more visual. I think theater can learn so much from cinematic storytelling. But I hope to always do both. I've also been working a little bit in television as a writer this year and have found a lot of joy doing that. I want the boundaries between all of these to be more flexible, and I think potentially that will happen in these times of necessity, when theater has to end up looking a lot more like a movie because we're watching it on a screen.

Your cast for In France Michelle Is a Man's Name is incredible. Ari Damasco delivers such a brave performance as Michael, and Jerry Carlton brings such depth as his dad. How did you find them?

Weinstein: I worked with this great casting director out of Portland, and the entire cast except for Ari were Portland-based. There were really wonderful actors who came in for the dad, but the movie made complete, new sense to us after watching Jerry perform. He put his all into this movie, and in really tough circumstances. We had a three-day shoot, and it was pouring rain. He worked so hard and was so loving and gave Ari so much.

Ari is a non-actor. We went to college together and he's one of my best friends. He had acted in a couple of my plays in college and then had gone on to do other things. I thought he would be amazing, and not only did he show up and do a great job, when the s--- hit the fan as it does on a short film he held the whole team together. Everyone saw how hard Ari was working, how brave he was and how much love he was giving everyone, and that pulled everyone together and inspired t

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