Can Good People Make Good Art?

As Ingrid Veninger's latest feature debuts at TIFF, we talk to the Toronto director about nightmare Q&As, real world vs. film world, and how indie directing is like making stone soup.

Born in Bratislava, rooted firmly in Toronto, Ingrid Veninger is a veteran of the Canadian film scene. Her latest directorial effort, i am a good person / i am a bad person, is at first glimpse a meta-feature: she plays Ruby White, an independent filmmaker on tour, and her daughter Hallie plays Ruby's daughter Sara. (i am was shot while Veninger was touring her previous film, the much liked Modra.) But it's an inverted kid-mom relationship that becomes increasingly twisted as a self-obsessed, angsty Ruby and a sober, secretly pregnant Sara go their separate ways. And though the feel of it is very contemporary—seemingly shot on the fly, with raw dialogue—it raises an ages-old question: can you make good art and still be a good person? In real life, Veninger looks like a dream hippie mom and talks in the measured, creamy way of a good therapist. We discussed nightmare Q&As, real world vs. film world, and how indie directing is like making stone soup. So this is your... millionth festival? I've had eleven feature films in the festival, if I count acting in Phil the Alien and On Your Knees, and I was the co-writer and producer and one of the stars in The Limb Salesman. If I count all the major roles, eleven features. In 2011, this is my eleventh feature, that's pretty cool. Have you ever had as awkward a Q&A as your character does in i am a good person? No, I've never had as awkward a Q&A, but I was very nervous when I started out. Especially because my films that have been shown at TIFF, they're really the world premieres. With this film, the actors and the crew have never seen the finished film. I'm going to be in a room with people that are seeing it for the very very first time. It's incredibly vulnerable because your heart, your soul's in it. It's an overwhelming feeling. I get nervous, mixed with excited... but I've never had such a horrible Q&A. Although once in Bratislava, the audience was getting up to leave, and my aunt said get up and I started talking and they put the microphone on while people were filing out of the theatre. And the very first question was “do you consider yourself a filmmaker?” I didn't get defensive. It's not, “Do you think you're a good filmmaker,” but “Do you think you're a filmmaker?” And it makes you think what is a filmmaker? I think it's something that's earned, and I'm trying to earn it. I don't know, it's like a really big thing to aspire to be. I don't know if I'm ever actually going to get there. I was once at an artist panel with Ryan McGinley, and an audience member asked how he knew he was an artist. And his answer sort of implied that the impulse was enough. But there's someone who from a very young age was selling works for massive sums and getting shows at the Whitney, so it might be easier for him to say that. Plus, he lived the lifestyle of an artist in New York, and that made him an artist in New York. Not everyone has that. A lot of people have to work as waiters and still somehow feel that they're artists. That impulse is the beginning of a crazy, tumultuous, lifelong journey. I think being an artist is like a pledge. It's a really heavy thing for me. I didn't know I would start directing. When I started acting, I almost started producing by [accident]—I fell in love with Cat's Eye when I was eighteen became really passionate about seeing that become a film. I invested $20,000 and got an option and worked with incredible people for five years, and that became my university. But I wasn't working as an actor thinking I'd like to start producing. It just happened. With directing or even writing I didn't set out to do it. I'm just reacting to a really, really strong involuntary impulse and if I ignored it I would be miserable. If I follow it I have incredible experiences. I've had unbelievable experiences. So I trust my instincts. If acting has given me one thing, it's that I have great instincts. And does the acting experience make you a better, more understanding director as well? I think for sure all the experiences I've had as an actor—I've been in almost 100 productions—with people that have really inspired me and people that have really discouraged me, I think that all of those experiences have helped me certainly work with actors, and my focus is on performance. And I understand production. It's not a mystery. I've grown up on sets since I was eleven years old. I have compassion for everybody's role. The incidental characters in this film, like the guy who comes up and talks to you in the square—he was so good, and reminded me of so many weird nomadic seers I've met places. Was he an actor or a stray? That was a stray, that was an accident that turned into what you see in the film. We were shooting a scene there and this man interrupts and asks if he can read, so we stopped shooting, and as soon as he started reading his first poem, I told my cinematographer to start rolling. It touched on the themes of the movie, and it was so honest, and he had such great charisma and openness. I asked if he had five hours to shoot. We gave him money and he signed a release and we re-shot his entrance. But even playing himself, he was so natural. He was in-cred-ible. He just trusted us. Even the scene where he's getting her to sing, he at first really looked at the camera. Because he didn't, I mean, he's a street person and he's been in various institutions, and there was no line for him between the camera and real life. It was beautiful. So when I said ask her to sing, he started yelling and looking at the camera. Then I said do it quiet, and he did it reeeally quietly. Then I said do it somewhere in-between, where it's a happy thing and you ask her from your heart, and he took direction beautifully. I thought wow, these are kinds of people I want to work with. Maybe it's just not having an ego. No ego, no expectation. He came into the fictional world of the film, a real person from the street, and then we embraced him and he felt comfortable. The two worlds crossed over. In most films they don't. You can't force a thing like that to happen, but if it happens, whether I have $50,000 or $50 million to make a film, I want to be open to that crossover. That's the real magic. You play a director, and it's based on your experiences. Do people assume it's more autobiographical or less autobiographical than it is? People assume it's more so, because it's my real daughter and we really were at film festivals for Modra. But we had a tonne of fun making this movie, way more fun than Modra, even though Modra is more joyful. I had the idea for the opening scene of this movie [in which she gives her husband a blowjob while kids are getting ready for school] ten years ago, and— Was that real? No. Not like Chloe Sevigny? No, although I loved Brown Bunny. I've had an image of that scene for a long time. And then I wanted to make the film Headshots for a couple of years, I wanted that script about a mother who makes that film, so she became this character. That's not me. And with my daughter, that's not our dynamic at all. There's no way I could make a movie like this if I didn't have a secure family. I couldn't take these kinds of risks. It's only because I've been with the same person, John Switzer for 21 years, and I have these two amazing kids, that I have the guts to make this kind of film that's pretty raw and pretty risky. It's like shooting an alternate ending for your life. It's my worst nightmare! It must be a relief to realize those fears on screen and then wrap them up. When we make work that's personal, we're exorcising certain things inside of us. My life is making films, it's been my life since I was a kid. And I often think, is it worth it? It takes so much energy. It takes so much of your soul, your physical strength, your mental strength, your faith. Do people care? There are so many films; does one more film by me make a difference? What is the value of making this film? It's not monetary. It's an experience I want me or my family to have. But I'm exorcising my fears: will my children be ashamed, will they lose respect for me, will my husband say “enough?” Can I balance? Can I find the balance of being a good person, a bad person, a bad filmmaker, a good filmmaker? But oh, my god, that my work becomes more important and breaks up my family is my worst nightmare. What are you planning next? I'm really excited to show the film to the audience and my actors and have that exchange. And then Richard Schiff, he's an actor who was on The West Wing, said he would work for me for $100 a day. I don't know if he was serious, but I'm going to take him up on it. If actors come up and look at my work and want to have that ride I'm on, I love writing for specific people. So actors just need to step up to me and say I want to do risky work, and step up to it. I want to work with so many great Canadian actors, and I want to work with more people on the street. That'll inform the next thing. The film, i am a good person / i am a bad person, is based on your experiences but also on your resources. Yes, and it's a matter of maximizing those resources. Limitations are a virtue, absolutely. You have certain actors, certain locations, certain challenges you can face. You have to combine those things and make something worthwhile. It's very practical, and it works. I've made three films in that way. It's like... what do they call it? That old fable? Stone soup. And that can make really amazing things. If you follow the recipe, you're eating the same thing every time. When you're making stone soup, you're putting things you love, things you discover, and you don't know what it's going to taste like. It might be awful, but it's going to be really fun to make. i am a good person/ i am a bad person screens Tuesday, Sept. 13, 12:30 pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4, and Saturday, Sept. 17, 8:45 pm, at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4. Sarah Nicole Prickett is Toronto Standard's Style Critic and a culture writer. __ Brought to you by the Alliance Film, Drive, in theatres September 16th.

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