Interview with filmmaker Deborah Kampmeier by Daria Popov
Deborah Kampmeier, by Mikaela Martin
After reading "My Body, My Country," one gets the sense that Hounddog is a highly personal piece. What was it like for you to tell such an intimate story on screen?
It was intense and thrilling to make this film and tell my story. And it was very transformative and healing for me. But I also kept the thin veil of fiction over my personal experience while making the film, as well as afterwards. I needed that so that I felt free to tell my truth as deeply as possible. In fact, when the controversy exploded and there were threats to have me and Dakota's mother arrested for child pornography, we even received death threats, it was highly recommended that I declare publicly that the film was based on a true story, on my story. But that was impossible for me at the time. It felt like a violation of my psyche. The essay you mention is the first time I have publicly articulated my own experience with sexual violence.
What was the experience like when you did the final take of the cabin scene with Dakota Fanning where her character, Lewellen, is taken assaulted?
While Dakota was celebrating on the bridge outside of the shack, she was literally dancing with joy because she knew she had nailed that scene, and she knew how important it was to me, I grabbed a friend and headed deep into the woods where I screamed and punched and cried for about 15 minutes before heading back to the set to move on to the next scene.
It was intense and thrilling to make this film and tell my story. And it was very transformative and healing for me. But I also kept the thin veil of fiction over my personal experience while making the film, as well as afterwards. I needed that so that I felt free to tell my truth as deeply as possible. In fact, when the controversy exploded and there were threats to have me and Dakota's mother arrested for child pornography, we even received death threats, it was highly recommended that I declare publicly that the film was based on a true story, on my story. But that was impossible for me at the time. It felt like a violation of my psyche. The essay you mention is the first time I have publicly articulated my own experience with sexual violence.
What was the experience like when you did the final take of the cabin scene with Dakota Fanning where her character, Lewellen, is taken assaulted?
While Dakota was celebrating on the bridge outside of the shack, she was literally dancing with joy because she knew she had nailed that scene, and she knew how important it was to me, I grabbed a friend and headed deep into the woods where I screamed and punched and cried for about 15 minutes before heading back to the set to move on to the next scene.
Dakota Fanning and Robin Wright Penn, Hounddog (2007), from The New York Sun
How did you deal with the misplaced outrage surrounding the cabin scene with Dakota Fanning? The outrage came primarily from people living in "Trump Country." How do you understand this strange contradiction?
I always say, when an actor gets their head blown off in a movie, people aren't running around hysterically claiming the actor was actually killed. But people were running around hysterically assuming Dakota was actually raped because she was in a rape scene. The entire moment was shot as a close-up of her face, which she performed brilliantly. And as Dakota herself said in an interview, what was hurtful to her was not the filming, but rather the attacks against her mother and the criticism she herself received for making the film. Hounddog is a film she was passionate about making because she felt it was an opportunity to give voice to a very real epidemic of sexual violence against young women and girls in our society.
In the midst of the extreme controversy, I took a cut of the film down to the DA's office in Wilmington, NC, where we shot the film, and where any legal action would take place. I took the most extreme version of the scenes I could put together so there would be no question about anything else in the film we shot but didn't reveal. I screened the film for the DA. Afterwards, he put it in writing that the film and filmmakers would not be prosecuted. Then he thanked us for making the film because, as he explained, they are prosecuting the real thing every day, but they never get calls to the office. Nevertheless, they were getting 20 or more calls a day to prosecute the film. It's a classic case of shoot the messenger, I think.
Look, if the statistics are correct about the number of women and girls who are sexually assaulted (and I think the numbers are actually higher), then it's not just a handful of creepy old guys roaming around the playground who are doing the raping. It's our men. And I think it's usually our young men who then grow up, get married, have good jobs, beautiful homes, and beautiful daughters, and they don't want to think about it, and their wives sure don't want to think about it. It all gets swept under the rug of their "boys will be boys" past. So a film comes along that tells this story and no one wants to see it or hear it. It hits too close to home. It wakes up unwanted memories. So it's easier to attack the film than to sit with these truths that make them uncomfortable.
Is film to you what music is to Lewellen?
Precisely.
How did you coach Dakota Fanning throughout the making of the film? How did you get such a stellar performance from a young actor?
When you are working with someone as talented as Dakota, your job is to hold the space for them to do their work. Our preparation was really about getting to know each other and building trust, and, of course, handling snakes. We got together and painted pottery, and I told Dakota what the film meant to me. I shared my secrets with her. On set I wasn't beside the monitor, I was up close, next to the camera, going through the scenes with her. I always felt like she was channeling me in some way. I felt like when we met for the first time about the film, we metaphorically reached across the table, took each other by the hand, and didn't let go until we finished making the film.
I always say, when an actor gets their head blown off in a movie, people aren't running around hysterically claiming the actor was actually killed. But people were running around hysterically assuming Dakota was actually raped because she was in a rape scene. The entire moment was shot as a close-up of her face, which she performed brilliantly. And as Dakota herself said in an interview, what was hurtful to her was not the filming, but rather the attacks against her mother and the criticism she herself received for making the film. Hounddog is a film she was passionate about making because she felt it was an opportunity to give voice to a very real epidemic of sexual violence against young women and girls in our society.
In the midst of the extreme controversy, I took a cut of the film down to the DA's office in Wilmington, NC, where we shot the film, and where any legal action would take place. I took the most extreme version of the scenes I could put together so there would be no question about anything else in the film we shot but didn't reveal. I screened the film for the DA. Afterwards, he put it in writing that the film and filmmakers would not be prosecuted. Then he thanked us for making the film because, as he explained, they are prosecuting the real thing every day, but they never get calls to the office. Nevertheless, they were getting 20 or more calls a day to prosecute the film. It's a classic case of shoot the messenger, I think.
Look, if the statistics are correct about the number of women and girls who are sexually assaulted (and I think the numbers are actually higher), then it's not just a handful of creepy old guys roaming around the playground who are doing the raping. It's our men. And I think it's usually our young men who then grow up, get married, have good jobs, beautiful homes, and beautiful daughters, and they don't want to think about it, and their wives sure don't want to think about it. It all gets swept under the rug of their "boys will be boys" past. So a film comes along that tells this story and no one wants to see it or hear it. It hits too close to home. It wakes up unwanted memories. So it's easier to attack the film than to sit with these truths that make them uncomfortable.
Is film to you what music is to Lewellen?
Precisely.
How did you coach Dakota Fanning throughout the making of the film? How did you get such a stellar performance from a young actor?
When you are working with someone as talented as Dakota, your job is to hold the space for them to do their work. Our preparation was really about getting to know each other and building trust, and, of course, handling snakes. We got together and painted pottery, and I told Dakota what the film meant to me. I shared my secrets with her. On set I wasn't beside the monitor, I was up close, next to the camera, going through the scenes with her. I always felt like she was channeling me in some way. I felt like when we met for the first time about the film, we metaphorically reached across the table, took each other by the hand, and didn't let go until we finished making the film.
What do snakes signify?
For me, snakes represent the divine female sexual energy. I had recurring dreams of snakes as a child. As I wrestled their meaning in my adult life, that is what they uncovered for me.
Actor/director Sarah Polley mentioned Hounddog in her recent New York Times article titled "The Men You Meet Making Movies." What was your reaction to Polley’s essay? The idea that a male director would use Dakota Fanning’s performance in Hounddog to manipulate and bully an actress must have infuriated you!
I was devastated as I read that quote in Sarah's beautiful article. I was in a rage that a producer used the rape scene in Hounddog against her. How dare he!!! I sobbed the whole night about it, and also because she thought Dakota may have been violated in the making of the film. I woke up in the morning and wrote her a letter. I hope it reached her. I just wanted her to know that if I had violated Dakota in any way I would have been betraying my whole reason for making the film. I was giving voice to all that was silenced in me, and silenced in so many women I know. I am sure she is right that "most directors are insensitive men." That is why we need women directors making their own films and telling their own stories.
In SPLiT, you decided to have real-life activists play characters in The Underworld. What inspired that decision?
When I started off making films, I didn't think of myself as a political filmmaker. But it has become clear that being a woman and just making a film is a political act. When the number of female filmmakers continues to hover around 6%, what you say as a woman has a huge impact. And as I began to claim that reality, I began to meet other women who were also making an impact in other areas of society. I began to meet activists whose voices aligned with my voice and the personal stories I needed to tell. In SPLiT, every story that is spoken in the underworld is a true story. And many of those stories came from my friends, so when the time came to make the film, it made great sense to have them come play themselves and speak the words I had borrowed from them. It was very inspiring when many agreed to do so.
SCENE FROM SPLiT: I SPEAK
Some of the choreography in SPLiT is reminiscent of Pina Bausch’s work. Is she one of your muses?
Pina Bausch is an epic muse of mine. But I must give credit for the stunning choreography in SPLiT to my dear friend and colleague Fay Simpson. We have worked together many times over many, many years. And she was the only person who could have brought such powerful, emotional, and true choreography to the scenes. She met my vision with her genius, and I think the result was perfect.
Pina Bausch is an epic muse of mine. But I must give credit for the stunning choreography in SPLiT to my dear friend and colleague Fay Simpson. We have worked together many times over many, many years. And she was the only person who could have brought such powerful, emotional, and true choreography to the scenes. She met my vision with her genius, and I think the result was perfect.
Amy Ferguson as Inanna, SPLiT (2013)
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SPLiT (2013)
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Your latest script is titled Persephone. The main character in SPLiT is Inanna. What goddess archetypes resonate so deeply with you?
For me, the mythologies of all patriarchal religions are about controlling and repressing women. They make me feel lonely and angry. So using the goddess archetypes is liberating and inspiring for me, and they help me understand deep truths about my life and experiences as a woman. These two goddesses, Persephone and Inanna, and the myths that accompany them, for me, address the value of darkness and the gifts that can be found in the underworld where much of the feminine is banished by our patriarchal culture. These goddess archetypes offer paths for me to reclaim aspects of myself that have been necessary for me to integrate in order to experience healing, power, and wholeness.
Can you tell us about Persephone? What is it about? What inspired it?
Persephone is a teenage girl who is pimped out of hotel rooms in Virginia. In the process of leaving her trafficker, she hitches a ride with a middle-aged female truck driver who has been searching for her missing daughter for years. On their road trip, through truck stops from Virginia to Florida, a cross-section of sex trafficking in the US is exposed, and a deep relationship is formed between the two women.
I’m interested in the complexity of sexuality and how violence against women informs that complexity. As a survivor of sexual violence, these are the stories that interest me. I am also a mother, and the fear of losing my daughter to sexual violence, to repeat my past, haunts me always. I have two good friends who are the survivors of domestic sex trafficking. In learning more about their stories I was compelled to examine, in depth, sex trafficking in the United States. My vision for the film includes capturing the raw realness of these women, and the dynamics of their journey from shame to freedom, which resonates deeply with me. While sex trafficking is an extreme example of exploitation and abuse that occurs on all levels of society, it is unfortunately a story that many women experience in varying degrees.
For me, the mythologies of all patriarchal religions are about controlling and repressing women. They make me feel lonely and angry. So using the goddess archetypes is liberating and inspiring for me, and they help me understand deep truths about my life and experiences as a woman. These two goddesses, Persephone and Inanna, and the myths that accompany them, for me, address the value of darkness and the gifts that can be found in the underworld where much of the feminine is banished by our patriarchal culture. These goddess archetypes offer paths for me to reclaim aspects of myself that have been necessary for me to integrate in order to experience healing, power, and wholeness.
Can you tell us about Persephone? What is it about? What inspired it?
Persephone is a teenage girl who is pimped out of hotel rooms in Virginia. In the process of leaving her trafficker, she hitches a ride with a middle-aged female truck driver who has been searching for her missing daughter for years. On their road trip, through truck stops from Virginia to Florida, a cross-section of sex trafficking in the US is exposed, and a deep relationship is formed between the two women.
I’m interested in the complexity of sexuality and how violence against women informs that complexity. As a survivor of sexual violence, these are the stories that interest me. I am also a mother, and the fear of losing my daughter to sexual violence, to repeat my past, haunts me always. I have two good friends who are the survivors of domestic sex trafficking. In learning more about their stories I was compelled to examine, in depth, sex trafficking in the United States. My vision for the film includes capturing the raw realness of these women, and the dynamics of their journey from shame to freedom, which resonates deeply with me. While sex trafficking is an extreme example of exploitation and abuse that occurs on all levels of society, it is unfortunately a story that many women experience in varying degrees.
Daria Popov is a student who lives in NYC, was born in Moldova, and raised in Rome. When she begins college at Marymount Manhattan College next year, she plans to study psychology, gender studies, and visual art. She loves poetry, literature, art, and her Shiba Inu.
Deborah Kampmeier is a writer, director and producer. Her second feature film Hounddog, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It won the top jury prize, Best of the Show, at the 2009 Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto and Best Feature at the 2008 Foyle Film Festival in Northern Ireland. The film stars Dakota Fanning, Robin Wright Penn, Piper Lauri and David Morse.
Deborah’s first feature film Virgin, which she made for $65,000, was nominated for two 2004 Independent Spirit Awards, the John Cassavetes Award (given to the best feature made for under $500,000) and the Best Female Lead for Elisabeth Moss’ performance in the film. In addition, Kampmeier won Best Screenwriter at the 2003 Hamptons International Film Festival. And Virgin garnered Best Feature Film at the 2003 Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, won Best Independent Spirit at the Santa Fe Film Festival and Best Actress at the Sedona Film Festival. Virgin had its world premiere at the 2003 IFP Los Angeles Film Festival.
Deborah’s third feature SPLiT premiered at the 2016 Sarasota Film Festival. SPLit is the story of one woman’s journey to claim her own darkness and stop putting it in the hands of her lover. The fim stars Amy Ferguson, Morgan Spector, Anna Mouglalis, Fred Lehne, Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Raina Von Waldenburg.
Deborah has also written and directed three short films. Eat Your Heart Out, Deborah’s third short film, was an official selection of the 2002 New York International Independent Film Festival and can be seen on DVD as an extra with her feature Virgin. Deborah is currently in development with several projects including Persephone, Lonely Hunter and Love Struggle.
Deborah has worked in theater in New York City for the past 25 years as a writer, director, actor and teacher. Deborah began her career in theater as an actor, training at the National Shakespeare Conservatory from 1983-85. She went on to study for over a decade with renowned acting teacher Michael Howard, who is credited as her primary influence as an actor, teacher and artist. She has taught acting in NYC for the past 20 years at such institutions as the Michael Howard Studios, NYU, Stella Adler Studios, Playwrights Horizons and The National Shakespeare Conservatory. She is a member of NYWIFT, IFP and Film Independent.
Deborah is the founder of Full Moon Films, a company dedicated to the development and production of films by and about women. Full Moon Films is located upstate NY where Deborah lives with her daughter Sophia and husband John.
Deborah Kampmeier is a writer, director and producer. Her second feature film Hounddog, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It won the top jury prize, Best of the Show, at the 2009 Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto and Best Feature at the 2008 Foyle Film Festival in Northern Ireland. The film stars Dakota Fanning, Robin Wright Penn, Piper Lauri and David Morse.
Deborah’s first feature film Virgin, which she made for $65,000, was nominated for two 2004 Independent Spirit Awards, the John Cassavetes Award (given to the best feature made for under $500,000) and the Best Female Lead for Elisabeth Moss’ performance in the film. In addition, Kampmeier won Best Screenwriter at the 2003 Hamptons International Film Festival. And Virgin garnered Best Feature Film at the 2003 Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, won Best Independent Spirit at the Santa Fe Film Festival and Best Actress at the Sedona Film Festival. Virgin had its world premiere at the 2003 IFP Los Angeles Film Festival.
Deborah’s third feature SPLiT premiered at the 2016 Sarasota Film Festival. SPLit is the story of one woman’s journey to claim her own darkness and stop putting it in the hands of her lover. The fim stars Amy Ferguson, Morgan Spector, Anna Mouglalis, Fred Lehne, Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Raina Von Waldenburg.
Deborah has also written and directed three short films. Eat Your Heart Out, Deborah’s third short film, was an official selection of the 2002 New York International Independent Film Festival and can be seen on DVD as an extra with her feature Virgin. Deborah is currently in development with several projects including Persephone, Lonely Hunter and Love Struggle.
Deborah has worked in theater in New York City for the past 25 years as a writer, director, actor and teacher. Deborah began her career in theater as an actor, training at the National Shakespeare Conservatory from 1983-85. She went on to study for over a decade with renowned acting teacher Michael Howard, who is credited as her primary influence as an actor, teacher and artist. She has taught acting in NYC for the past 20 years at such institutions as the Michael Howard Studios, NYU, Stella Adler Studios, Playwrights Horizons and The National Shakespeare Conservatory. She is a member of NYWIFT, IFP and Film Independent.
Deborah is the founder of Full Moon Films, a company dedicated to the development and production of films by and about women. Full Moon Films is located upstate NY where Deborah lives with her daughter Sophia and husband John.
