WXFF 2020: Alison Still
We spoke with Alison Still, director Antonio which is part of our Women X Film Festival. Alison talks to us about her process of creating a realistic vintage feel to her film and how her family inspired the story.
Tell us about yourself and the work you do
I’m born and raised in Edinburgh, and I currently live in Glasgow. I work in television production, but I’m a writer at heart. I just love telling and hearing stories.
What is your proudest moment of your career so far?
That’s a big question! I’ve done lots of things I’m proud of, but after the first screening of "Antonio" my dad cried and he’s a tough one to crack, so that meant a lot to me.
Aesthetically, the film is very indicative of the era in which it is set - how did you go about achieving that?
Research, research, research! I made “Antonio” in my final year of university, when I was also writing my dissertation on American New Wave cinema, so I was watching lots of films made in the early 1970s. I also looked to work being made in the UK around the same time - "Just Another Saturday" and “Kes" were important references for their aesthetic and feeling. I also used the Scottish moving image archive, where I was able to watch films depicting everyday life in Scotland in the early 70s. I drew a lot on Lynne Ramsay’s “Ratcatcher” and “Gasman” - films which were made in the late 90s but depict the 70s in Glasgow.My dad had also recently found a beautiful album of family photos from the late 1960s. The colours of these images played a big part in finding the colour scheme for the film - lots of warm browns and oranges, and really fresh, cold blues and greens which contrasted with them.I also looked to art and photography. Joan Eardley famously painted the children of Glasgow’s slums in the 50s and one of the shots at the start of the film was a direct reference to one of her paintings. Then there’s the works of photographer Oscar Marzaroli, who took many pictures of Glasgow’s people from the 50s through to the 80s. You can see some of my references here on a blog I made in pre-production: https://antonio-mood-board.tumblr.com/On top of that, Siiri, my production and costume designer, did an amazing job with the levels of detail she went into in creating the feel of the era. Her research was also really extensive and she had some great mood boards!
The street is very much part of the story and prominent throughout the film - how did you find such a perfect location for shooting?
I’m glad that came through, as I wanted the street to feel like a character in the film! We were based in Glasgow, and because we would be filming on a road, I knew we were looking for a dead-end street which would be easier to close off. So I spent hours scanning areas of the city and its surrounds on google maps, repeatedly dropping the street view pin into cul-de-sacs and dead-end roads to see how they looked. We scouted a few of the promising ones, and this one in Clydebank suited us the most. While we were scouting a resident cracked a joke about how the street was like a time warp, which was perfect for us!
The family photos that appear in the film, where did they come from and who are they of? They look like genuine old photographs!
They are genuine family photos. My Nonna, my mum’s mum, emigrated to Scotland in the 1950s, which was part of the inspiration for the film. She appears in the first photo we see of the young couple - the man on the right is her brother. She appears in some of the other photos, and the rest are more of my Italian relatives. It was really lovely to be able to include my Nonna in the film in this way.
Can you talk a little about the decision to present this narrative amongst the landscape of childhood?
It was always going to be from Antonio’s perspective - this story started with the street kids. My parents were children of the 70s, and my mum was the child of an immigrant growing up in Scotland, so I’ve always been told stories of the kinds of things they got up to when they were wee. And seeing the story from Antonio’s P.O.V. was important because he was old enough to be aware of his parents’ struggles, but also dealing with his own problems fitting in. There's a sweetness to the child's perspective that appealed to me, and some of my references like Ratcatcher and Kes captured that delicate feeling of innocence on the brink of collapse. And I think, especially in places like Glasgow, the kids playing on the street were - and still are - such an important part of communities. They're ever-present and familiar, and I loved working with the little gang of kids we had on the shoot.
What themes do you want to explore in your future work?
My writing since “Antonio” has been consistently female-led, and I think it will stay that way. I also come from a huge family and I would love to make something which explores the dynamics that exist within that. But really, it’s hard to say what themes I’ll explore next, as I find themes usually start to present themselves once I’ve already started writing!
What three things do you always have on your bedside table?
A book, a notebook and a lip balm. I just finished reading “In The Dream House” by Carmen Maria Machado, which I highly recommend, and I've just started Abbi Jacobson's book "I Might Regret This". I also always have a notebook for jotting down thoughts, feelings and any vivid dreams I remember. And I always use a lip balm before I go to sleep at night.
What are you working on at the moment/next?
I’ve spent most of lockdown writing, and wrote a rough draft of my first feature, which is a coming of age story about a young woman realising her sexuality and finding her identity. I’m still developing and working on that with help from writer friends. I’ve also started developing a TV series idea, exploring how we navigate our online identities alongside who we are in the real world.
Tell us three things you're grateful for?
Being surrounded with loving family and friends, having a space I can call my own, and feeling the world live and breathe around me - sunsets, rainfall, birdsong.
