INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR CAIRO SMITH ON HIS NEW FILM 'SCREWDRIVER'

Screwdriver is a new entry into the psychological thriller genre. With a cast of only four actors, the movie centers on Emily, a recently divorced and vulnerable young woman who is taken in by a couple, the husband being a high-school friend. Little does Emily know that when she accepts the couple's hospitality she is walking into a subtle web of betrayal and manipulation in which her very sanity will come under assault. Starring AnnaClare Hicks as Emily, and Charlie Farrell and Milly Sanders as the couple, the film is the directorial debut of 26 year old Cairo Smith who also wrote the script.

Screwdriver has been shown at a number of festivals including the SOHO International Film Festival and the NYC Independent Film Festival. Screwdriver became available on digital and cable Video on Demand on November 10.

I recently posed some questions to Cairo Smith regarding his new film.

QUESTION: What was the impetus behind the creation of Screwdriver? Is the movie exploring any particular ideas or themes? CAIRO SMITH: Yeah, I guess within any civilization, there is a band of acceptable behaviors, and more specifically, those behaviors are limited by the norms of your class and your place. And yet, of course, humanity is universal, and we have a very wide range of conduct that we want to engage in. And I guess what's interesting for me is the way that people attempt to meet their desires outside the bounds of the conduct that they're allowed by their peers, and the way they describe and sort of wander and conceal these activities. So that's a big theme. So, the impetus, I guess, was to tell a story about three people with very different desperate wants, and the way they tried to reconcile those disparate wants. Q. Was there anything particularly memorable or unexpected that happened during the course of filming? SMITH: One of the stories I always think of is, at one point we were filming a very intimate whispered scene, and all of a sudden we started hearing the Star Wars theme song through the wall on a piano over and over again. And we realized that somebody was practicing piano next door. And we were all very scared that it was picking up on the microphone, since it was such a quiet moment in the film. So I did what a producer is supposed to do, and I went next door with about $100 cash, and I politely introduced myself to this mother of a boy, maybe a nine-year-old boy, who was practicing piano. And I offered to give her $100 to delay his practice by just a couple hours. This was maybe 4 p.m., and to my astonishment, she said no. She said very directly to my face, he needs to practice, period. He needs to practice. And that was that. Fortunately, the piano didn't end up picking up at all on the microphone. So I guess we saved $100, but still. I was definitely surprised that she didn't take the money.

Q. What advice would you have to give to a director making their first feature length film? SMITH: I think a lot of it depends on the budget, but a lot of it also is universal. On the universal side, I would say, be there for your actors, listen to your actors, really think about the language you can use to get them to the performance that you want constructively without feeding them a line reading or getting frustrated. I would say that taking acting classes yourself and reflecting on how it feels to be on the other side of that relationship with a director is probably the most important thing you can do. And other than that, just expect the unexpected, give yourself extra time, make peace in advance with the fact that certain things won't work out, and listen to your assistant director. Q. Are there any directors whose films you particularly admire? Have those films influenced your work? SMITH: I think any film that you make in a genre is participating in the discourse of that genre, which evolves over time. Obviously, hopefully you are aiming to be added to the canon and become a piece of that ever-evolving woven tapestry that defines the genre. So for this case, you know, there are films like Rosemary's Baby or Queen of Earth that I admire incredibly that this film is in discussion with. If I were making, say, a buddy comedy, I would have totally different answers for you. As far as directors, there are so many. I think you can see a lot of my favorites in entirely too much detail on my Letterboxd account. Q. I thought the music by Sean Renner was particularly atmospheric. Can you describe your collaboration with him? SMITH: Sean is an absolute legend. He's so incredibly talented, I think, just through his sheer skill he has come to pretty much define the film with his score. We found him out of several hundred submissions. Myself and our producer Michelle Shundo listened to every single one together, and I believe Michelle is the one who shortlisted him, so I owe her forever for that. I sent him a lot of inspiration, and I think we both really pushed each other. He worked with instruments he had never worked with before. He worked with a lot of textural sounds, things like a potato peeler that he was able to integrate with aplomb, and just step by step despite my lack of musical ability, we iterated and refined until we had something that I would hope is better than what either of us could have done on our own.

Q. Is there anything in general you would like to tell audiences about Screwdriver? SMITH: David Lynch has a very famous quote where he says that when you make a film, everyone wants you to talk about it, and it's frustrating because the film itself is the talking. That's a little bit paraphrased, but that's the idea. And I think he's right. The film is the talking. So no, there's nothing I think I need to tell the audience. I think if I did my job, it's already embedded within the film. Q. Would you like to share what your next projects are? SMITH: I have a number of completed feature film scripts at various budget levels ready to shoot, so any one of those could start relatively soon, depending on funding. There's a very exciting contained action thriller with a bit of a supernatural element that I think we could do for about $5-10 million, and it would be just incredibly stylish and kinetic. If there was one project I could get funded with the snap of my fingers, it would be that one. But I don't control how the gears of film financing turn. So in the meantime, I'm making a short and hopefully developing a technical pipeline that can be applied to stylish and cost-effective features where, of course, the performance is put above everything else.

- Interview conducted by Paul Hansen