Interview: Zia Anger and Odessa Young on the Freedoms of ‘My First Film’

All movies are made by people, but few feel as guided by the hand of fate as Zia Anger’s My First Film. A certain subset of plugged-in cinephiles might recognize the name of the project from its many years as a performance piece, starting in 2018 at Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater before going on tour and eventually evolving to be a shared online experience during the pandemic. Using the footage from her would-be directorial debut, Always All Ways, Anne Marie, which IMDb declared “abandoned,” Anger constructed an interactive screenlife film that interrogated her fraught relationship with the material.

This initial iteration of My First Film channeled Anger’s frustration with the filmmaking and festival ecosystems into something that could establish a more honest connection with an audience. With her back to the audience and a TextEdit document open alongside QuickTime files of her aborted freshman feature, Anger provided an unflinching and self-critical glimpse at how an idealistic production came to be engulfed in personal and artistic crises. The performance leaped off her MacBook’s desktop home screen and involved viewers directly in the process of creation through the use of iMessage and AirDrop.

But in the latest version of My First Film, co-written by Billy Feldman, Anger figuratively cheats out to make more direct contact with her audience. Within the format of a narrative autofiction, she follows critique with catharsis. In fearless collaboration with actress Odessa Young, who plays an avatar of the filmmaker named Vita, Anger returns to the root of her project by recreating the turbulent production that cast such a long shadow over her professional career. This tribute to her collaboration reclaims the project from the industry’s shallow designations and recasts it as an unexpected delight instead of an unmitigated disaster.

At the risk of sounding flippant, the resultant product provides the aesthetic fulfillment of a phrase recently popularized by Vice President Kamala Harris: “What can be, unburdened by what has been.” My First Film in feature form vividly recaptures the youthful spark that started Anger’s whole journey while baking in all the wisdom she’s gained from wrestling with that shoot’s impact. It’s a deeply, painfully personal work of formal and narrative inventiveness that also nods to the larger political context in which it exists. In a post-Dobbs world, Anger’s grappling with abortion as both physical reality and metaphor grounds the film in a loftier discussion of who gets saddled with the true consequences of supposed mistakes.

I spoke with Anger and Young prior to My First Film’s brief theatrical run before it lands on its eventual streaming home at MUBI. Our conversation covered how they established such a symbiotic artistic partnership on the set of the film, why their process was at the core of the project, and whether the film has truly ended for either of them.

Zia, what opened up within this project by sharing your experience to be embodied by someone else like Odessa? Did bringing someone into this journey who wasn’t there from the beginning help you see it differently?

Zia Anger: It definitely helped me to see it differently and be a lot kinder to myself than maybe I had been in the past. For the most part, it helped me to be really excited again about stuff. To see somebody, even if they were just playing a character, be so excited was really exciting. I think that Odessa and I decided to work together in part because we had a lot of really similar feelings about the film industry and how fucked up it can be. She was willing to walk into this role and let that go to become this much more naïve, excited, and grandiose version of myself. It was just a new way to see. Everybody’s dream is to look back at yourself with kinder eyes or something like that, and it was really wonderful and incredibly inspiring to watch her do that.

Odessa, what was most helpful for you to find your way into the film? What did you connect with, and how did you see yourself advancing the project?

Odessa Young: The thing that I knew that I needed to do that would justify the reason that I was cast in it was just [to be] pedal to the metal, balls to the wall, belly up to the bar. I knew that I needed to commit completely and wholeheartedly, and that was the only way to honor my casting. I think that was made much easier than it otherwise could have been by the fact that I just inherently trusted every single thing that Zia was trying to do. For me, it’s very rare to look at every single decision that a director or creator is making, and be like, “Yep, completely and wholeheartedly agree.” It’s very rare to have that just be a given all the way through.

Zia had been incredibly vulnerable and generous with me in terms of sharing the specific circumstances and meanings of these things that she was writing about—[including] the events in her past and her history that gave the context for these moments that were in the script. [As I] was getting into it and starting to put these things on camera, I felt like Zia had been so revealing, vulnerable, and humble that I had to match that generosity of spirit and allow myself to be in danger of looking silly or failing. In doing that, she went even further. It became this really amazing, joyous one-upping, in a way. [laughs] It was never competitive, but we were always encouraging each other to be open up more. At least that’s how it felt for me. I felt like it was this passing off the baton, even multiple times a minute.

ZA: I agree.

Odessa, when we last spoke, back in 2020 about Shirley, you talked about being guided by intuition as an actress but were also curious about adding some real process to your performances. How does something like My First Film play into your evolution as an actress?

OY: Maybe what’s changed is that there’s not such a huge difference between intuition and process for me anymore. Probably what I was talking about was that those two incredible actors had so much experience. Michael Stuhlbarg is an extremely technical actor, and Lizzie [Moss], who’s less technical, is just so experienced. It certainly felt like, at least with this film, the process was a huge part of it and felt very designed and very important and intrinsic to the work. But the origin of that process was incredibly intuitive. And I think Zia and I built that together.

As an actor, at least for me, I don’t want to dictate the process. I don’t have enough of a solid process that I need to be like, “Okay, Zia, this is what I need, this is how I’m going to do it, blah blah blah.” I wanted to see how she started to lead, and then I would follow. Again, it would be like that baton handing over. I don’t even know if either of us could articulate our process these days, but we’ve developed this very specific process of communication, and then transmutation of expression back to communication. It’s this weird little cycle that felt very unique to this film.

ZA: It was all process, the entire thing! But part of the process is just devotion to process. It’s being like, “We’re going to be rigorous about this. We’re going to do this. We’re going to be open to whatever we need.” And so, on my part, I was really open to whatever the actors needed. Odessa, it seems, needed all the information about this character possible. I don’t know if I needed to give it to her or if she needed it, but that’s what I did. There were other actors like Devon [Ross], who plays Dina, who it felt like needed no information. That was actually so perfect because Dina was so this character that needed like nothing from me except my presence. She expects me to just be there, be excited, and match her on an energetic level. Phil [Ettinger], who plays Dustin, wanted a lot of backstory and music for this character.

For a lot of the crew, it was the first film they’d ever done. Just the excitement they had doing it was enough that I didn’t need to tinker with it too much. I just thought, “Well, they’ve just got to have a great experience. They’re all going to live in a house together and have fun in rehearsals together. They’re all going to ask me any questions they want, and I’m going to tell them anything they want, and I can give them little hints about how to be on camera and stuff like blocking. But ultimately, I don’t want to put my hands in it too much because they’re all so wonderful and excited.” Why mess with a good thing? The process was the product. It was just being open to whatever anybody needed. Especially for such a technical and complicated film, it was exciting to not be so technical and complicated about what I as a director needed to do.

It seems safe to say that Vita’s observation to “wait patiently and let the muse take over” is certainly something that you’ve evolved beyond.

ZA: Yeah, it’s beyond the idea of a muse. What we got to do in 22 days together was the greatest 22 consecutive days of my life. It was so wonderful and meaningful. So much fun and so, so hard. But it was incredibly inspiring, and I will have this feeling with me and take it forever. [During] the entire editing process, I would just remember those 22 days were so filled with love, and there was so much creative energy there that could last this entire time.

You mentioned that a lot of the cast members who play your crew were making their first feature. Was that more to have their innocence and naivete play out on screen, or was it a way for you to put the learnings of that initial shoot into play by leading a set that provided a demonstration of your growth since then?

ZA: I continued to practice as a director, even though I never made a feature film again. I did a lot of music videos and short films. I literally did children’s plays. I felt like I had a pretty good feeling about how to direct, but at a certain point, there are so many more things with directing than just “you do this” or “here’s your backstory.” It’s an entire art, so part of it was just casting people that really resonated within my heart as these characters and trusting that they would be able to do a lot of the rest. For example, Cole [Doman], who plays JJ, was a really experienced actor. He’s been in a lot of features and TV shows, but that was so right for that character. The character of JJ was so self-assured and knew how everything was supposed to go, even though he’d “never done it before.” Each casting choice was based, like, on the character enough that if I saw resonance in their audition tape and then in those callbacks, I just went with it.

Odessa, you talked briefly about how working with Zia made you comfortable with the idea of failure. As a performer, how do you think about failure in screen acting given that your relationship to what an audience sees is shaped by someone else’s eyes and edits? Do you feel a different sense of comfort with surrendering control?

OY: I think that my entire career will be the reckoning with that fact. There’s no acting or creation in a vacuum, but specifically in terms of that job, it functions as translation. You need a source, and then you need a projection. In an ideal world, the engines of both the source and the projection would be love, joy, and trust. But I think that’s pretty unrealistic to assume that everything’s going to be that way. I’ve certainly done things where that hasn’t been the engine of the work, and that’s really tough. Those are the moments where you want to have experiences like this film so that you can basically convince yourself that it’s all still worth doing.

This film, I do believe, gave me something that I will find extremely valuable, which is that Zia’s attitude about failure is that it doesn’t really exist. In the context of this film specifically, any outcome would have been exactly what should have happened. There’s no such thing as success or failure. There’s just: “Are you feeling it?” That perspective unlocked something in me that I will take with me forever because it’s honestly none of my fucking business whether it’s successful or whether it fails. Remembering that is much easier when you have a collaborator and leader like Zia because there’s never a moment in which you feel like you’re in danger of doing the wrong thing or providing the wrong feeling. Just whatever’s happening is beautiful.

She mentioned that the film is about process, and it was really hard to tell sometimes when the camera was rolling. There’s usually a massive, distinctly energetic shift between a rehearsal and a take. There’s this weird, alchemical thing that happens when someone calls “action” and when someone calls “cut.” It’s like Schrodinger’s cat, just being a witness [to that] changes the nature of it. And sometimes that’s really helpful, sometimes it’s not.

On this film specifically, the blend was so seamless between preparation and capturing the thing that it felt so much like process and not at all like projection or result. There was no failure, no success—it was all just going to happen. I feel so grateful to have had that experience and to have been able to learn that in a place like this film with a creator like Zia. It’s a gift going through the rest of my life and career with that knowledge of how it can feel when you’re not scared…or when you’re just scared of the right things, but that’s never success and failure.

One of the things that Vita is always saying in the film is that she wants it to be “true.” If that’s not necessarily the right goal for a movie, what do you think is?

OY: Oh gosh, that’s a huge question. I mean, “true” is such a subjective word. I mean, language is fake anyway, but “true” specifically has been contested for millennia. Zia, what do you think?

ZA: I mean, the film starts off by saying that I don’t even know what certain words mean. Like, oh god, what does truth mean? I’ve Googled the difference between truth and honesty so many times, and I still don’t even know what the difference is exactly! With making art, the way that I see or feel about it is that truth is slippery, complicated, and a wonderful thing to try to strive for. But truth, to me, isn’t reality. It’s not necessarily anybody else’s truth. The word even sounds like the way it’s supposed to feel, which is just like this oneness inside of you or something like that. It sounds like a crazy hippie thing, I get it.

OY: The commune is coming out, Zia!

ZA: Oh, God. But I do think that, for me, ultimately the thing that I now strive for is to be truthful to myself and my collaborators in the creative process. To follow these things that are actually things that I feel inside of me rather than what I think I need to do to be received by the world in a positive way. Part of the editing of this film was very difficult because we were getting film festival rejections at the same time, but it released me from making something for a particular audience and allowed me to make something that was true to myself and the people that I got to work with. And ultimately, I think that the film is much better because of it, even if there’s pain and sadness around who gets to see it and when.

The film is releasing now, but has My First Film really ended for either of you? Or do you feel like it’s always going to be this creative process that’s going to keep repeating itself and working inside of you?

ZA: What Odessa said about how she learned a lot of lessons that she’ll take forward with her is really similar to how I feel. To have such an amazing experience working with people from the moment I sat down to write this with Billy to the end when I put the final touches on the edit with Joe Bini to everything in between, I know now what it can be right. It might never happen again like this and might never be as good, but now I really will always strive for and work toward that. But [I’m] also in service of the art, and every process is going to be really different.

We had a couple of people come up to us when we were making this who hadn’t been in a feature film before, whether it was actors or crew members, and they would say, “Is it always like this?” And I remember smiling and feeling very sad inside, but also saying, “You know, it’ll never be like this, but you’re going to have a lot of other really amazing experiences too.” That’s what I hope for myself and Odessa—and what I hope the continuation of My First Film is in spirit. You will have other great and amazing experiences. It’s possible.

OY: Against all odds, honestly. I think the nature of a film like this [is to ask] more questions than it provides answers. Questions are the beginning of things, and answers are the end of things. For me, it won’t end because I think it has given me something that will always remain open and in a state of collection. Selfishly, I don’t want it to end because I just really love working with Zia and want to just keep being a part of her creative process because it’s one of the most fulfilling that I’ve gotten to witness. Whatever the themes of this film and the questions that it asks are, those don’t have an expiration date.

ZA: We’re tied to each other for life. Apologies to Odessa’s career!

OY: I’m okay with it. Something kind of weird happened up there in Ithaca! There was some weird kind of transference going on. That was the merge.

ZA: I’ve got a million ideas in mind of projects I want to do with Odessa, so that’s really exciting.