There are numerous first time directors at this year’s Berlinale, but few come with the sort of indie film credits on Rebecca Lenkiewicz‘s resume.
The British playwright and screenwriter had worked on the script for Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning “Ida” alongside the director, on “Disobedience” with Sebastián Lelio and on “Colette” with Wash Westmoreland, before going it alone to turn Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s book about their industry-shaking Harvey Weinstein expose into the script that would become Maria Schrader’s “She Said” in 2022.
But with “Hot Milk,” which bowed at the Palaste on Friday, she moved closer to the camera and made it her directorial debut. Adapted (by Lenkiewicz) from Deborah Levy’s book and shot in Greece, the story is set under the hot Spanish summer and follows Sofia, a young woman (Emma Mackey) in a co-dependent relationship with her wheelchair-bound mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) as the two travel to a sun-soaked seaside town to meet an enigmatic healer (Vincent Perez) who may just have a miracle cure. But while there, Sofia meets the free-spirited yet damaged Ingrid (Vicky Krieps) and find herself falling wildly in love. “It’s incredibly intense,” notes Lenkiewicz. “And then she goes to Greece to see her father, who she hasn’t seen for years and it all just kind of explodes.”
Speaking to Variety, the writer-turned-writer/director discusses why it felt like the right time to make the leap and being “blessed” with a “triptych of women” on screen.
Am I right in thinking that you were originally asked to adapt the book ‘Hot Milk’ before you came on board as director as well?
Actually, I went into the meeting and, I hadn’t really planned to say this, but I said I would adapt it if I could direct it. Christine Langan took that in. I’d been feeling for a long time a sadness in giving scripts away. And especially with this book, it felt incredibly female. I could see it. I could feel it. So I just really wanted to do it. I left that with Christine and she came back to me and said: ‘Yeah, let’s try.’
Was it something particular about ‘Hot Milk’ or simply that it was the time to direct?
I think it was both. But I think it was also how fragile and robust the female heroine was — and I felt I could relay that well. I connected to each of the characters. I could also see the casting. So I just felt very strongly that I wanted it to stay with me.
And it wasn’t anything to that you got to shoot in the sunshine in Greece?
No. Ha! Greece was amazing, but it was 45 degrees (113F). The Greek team sort of said to us, you can’t shoot in August, it’s crazy. And we thought, perhaps they’re being a bit dramatic. And we went there and there was wildfires. But it was the most incredible time and the most incredible place to shoot.
Were you hands on with the casting? You’ve got a mighty trio in Emma Mackey, Vicky Kreips and Fiona Shaw.
With that triptych of women I’m so blessed. They’re just amazing actresses and incredible women on set. And each of them are quite different actresses. So it was interesting to see the different processes coming together.
So how was your first experience directing?
It was wonderful. I loved it. But only because everyone around me was so incredibly supportive. Technically, they helped me. I had a brilliant relationship with Christopher Blauvelt, the cinematographer. The producers guided me beforehand — Christine Langan and Kate Glover were amazing. I just had this body of artists and crew who were just so encouraging and supportive. I knew what I wanted to make and I could see it and feel it and hear it. So everyone was on board with that.
Did it give you any newfound respect for directing? I spoken to a lot of actors who have gone behind the camera and a lot of them said that they came of it realising just how much the director has on their plate.
It did. Just the amount of responsibility, that you’re carrying from day one to the end, is huge. Vincent Perez is a brilliant director and an actor in our film. On the last day of the shoot, I said ‘We’re finished.’ And he said, ‘No, you haven’t finished.’ But it’s true — there’s so many processes of the edit. And now we’ve got the birth to come.
