What’s it like to find yourself in a deeply special relationship with a person in an ever-changing family life? That question seems to be answered in Azi, a new short film directed by Montana Mann that’s steeped in family drama and romanticism. During a weekend vacation with her best friend’s family, 17-year-old Azi (Percy Jackson and the Olympians‘s Dior Goodjohn) gets caught up in an unexpected game with another guest.
Following their Sundance premiere, The Hollywood Handle had the opportunity to speak with Azi director Montana Mann, producer Steven Snyder, and actresses Emma Filley and Breeda Wool about the short film! Throughout our conversation, we talk about Mann’s personal connection to the idea, how the Sundance short came to be, exploring the short’s interpretations of special relationships, and much more. Additionally, check out the full video of our conversation down below!
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): Great to see all of you here today and obviously Azi is just a really touching film. I had an amazing time with watching it! What was your Sundance experience like and how was it showing the film for the first time there at Sundance?
EMMA FILLEY: It was crazy. I feel like the biggest thing is like every time it shows in a different place, every audience has a different reaction so I feel like it always keeps you like on your toes to see how the audience is going to react.
It was just the most like adrenaline-filled part, I think, and then also to just be like surrounded by so many different creators and different parts of the industry.
MONTANA MANN: I think Sundance is such a fun crowd because they really love movies and they really love, you know, making art and so they were really in kind of all the ups and downs of the story and hearing them respond was really cool. And meeting the other filmmakers was really awesome, seeing the other films on the block.
I loved hearing them laugh and giggle and ooh and ah, and then get real quiet at the end. That’s my favorite part. It’s always just so magical. I love it. And then when the movie ends, depending on the crowd that you’re in, you either get like, oh, or you get like whispers, like everyone starts whispering to each other, which I love.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO: I sort of want to talk about the film itself as well, because there’s sort of a lot in depth thematically with all of this connectivity, all of the relationships as well. So I want to ask you, Montana, about your personal connection to the film and how you came up with this original idea for your short film as well.
MONTANA MANN: It was inspired by a connection I had with somebody when I was a senior in high school. And that relationship and connection is something that I’ve thought a lot about. And I just thought, “Oh, this is just too personal of a story.”
I wrote it alone in my room because I just had to get it out. Then, I was working with a showrunner at the time who read some of that material. And he was like, “You absolutely have to make this and you should go forward with it.” I have to credit him for giving me sort of that push of courage earlier on to explore the story more.
I took a chunk out of the movie and made it into a short in order to really show people the tone, how anxiety-provoking some of it can be, how sensual some of it can be, and really showing them the subtext of what was happening and you can get away with that. We did it for a shoestring budget. I’m so incredibly grateful that Emma, Breeda, Dior, and Steven, and everybody else, [Colin Oh], our cinematographer, that everyone put 110% into making it.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO: I can definitely see how awesome your performances, everyone’s performances was in this film. As a filmmaker, you obviously have to have all of these challenges as well. Learning all of these new lessons as a filmmaker, as you’re developing something new, I also want to ask what new things did you learn about yourself, your relationships, as well as your community, as you were working on this film?
MONTANA MANN: I think that always the lesson is you need more time and more money, and that’s not really something you get a lot of control over. So that’s just like a lesson you’ll have till the end of time.
I think that one of the biggest things that was really important to me on the short was how proud I was of how well it was casted. I think that that was one of the biggest lessons was like, picking the right people for the role is 90% of the job. And so I think that I was very proud of myself for making those choices.
I think that was a really big lesson for me. When you make stuff for like a studio, they have so much say over who is in your material. Sometimes, unfortunately, you have to work with people that aren’t right for the role. And it’s very frustrating. And it’s very hard. I just felt like so, so lucky to work with these actors, because they are so amazing and they did such an amazing job on a time crunch on low budget.
BREEDA WOOL: When you do a short film, it’s a small amount of time. I’m like, “Oh, yes, it’s the actors, everything is gold and a fucking Sundance slam!”
Montana’s environment on set is a highly creative, highly thoughtful environment where everyone was able to do their best work. And I think that that comes in any project that you do from the creative force, you can put some stuff together, but it’ll be almost like an accident.
In my experience, working with Montana, it was a highly creative and fostering everybody else’s creative sort of endeavors inside the project, but also having a very strong point of view. And when you’re in an environment like that as an actor, it’s fun. And you’re you can do your best work, because you’re allowed to do your best work.
Joy and pleasure is very lovely, but also for me, joy and pleasure means a place that I can actualize what it is that I want to make in my life and my art. And so I think, into the future of the oeuvre that is Montana, man, I think that everyone should want to work with her because all the DPs, all the crew, there was a celebration at the end of this because everyone had such an extraordinary time making this film.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO: That’s the ship we’re sailing with and it’s the ship I’m excited to see go further in the future. I also have to ask this: Emma, Breeda, how did you come across Montana’s work for the first time and what really made you want to sort of get involved with this project in the first place as both Morgan and as Elizabeth?
EMMA FILLEY: It was one of those like daily scroll when I saw it. And it just I feel like from the beginning, it was like intriguing because there was like detail, but there wasn’t any detail to it. So I was like, “What is this about”? And then I was just like, it seems so fun. It was just like something that came at the right time.
I was like, “Yeah, I mean, it’s like one of my first submissions, like just moving here. So like, who knows?” It was such a quick process after that because I just got the email and then we hopped on Zoom and started the whole process. Obviously, I did my deep dive on Montana and production company and everyone just seemed like such cool people to work with. So from the beginning, it was just so exciting.
MONTANA MANN: I think that when I saw Emma’s tape, I was like, “Oh, yeah, that’s Morgan.” Immediately, I saw her and she has a confidence and an ease to her. The way that she handles things and also on set, I threw out a lot of stuff for her to improvise. Never once was she like I didn’t get the impression that she was like overwhelmed or anything.
BREEDA WOOL: I thought her approach to things were really interesting. There isn’t a lot of scripts that I get or see that explores the fucked up side of the adolescent female mind and how that it wants to explore power. It’s a part of my past and my experience that it’s kind of beautiful and amazing and something that like I have a very keen understanding of.
Euphoria kind of explores some of these things in a more in-depth way. You oftentimes see this like representation of young women that doesn’t ring in in the way that my experience did. This script script felt like there was a place to explore some of the more taboo topics.
There’s something satisfying for me in the in this character to see a young woman explore. Danger, dominance, adults like adult dynamics from the perspective of a young woman. I think that we’re in this like really epic era of female filmmaking right now where there’s a lot of topics that we haven’t seen before… I feel like Nicole Kidman sees and identifies it and tries to create this in her production company.
STEPHEN SNYDER: when we when we were first casting, I was texting Montana. I was like, “What do you know about Breeda Wool?” I’m like, “Have you seen Mass? Have you seen Birth/Rebirth?” Then Montana was like, “I know Breeda!” Then it was fate in that way that I was suggesting someone that Montana had known and worked with and organic to the movie in that way.
I think you kind of get some people that come in as like, “Oh, this is a short film.” And we had fun, but we all took it very seriously and like it was a feature film. I think Sundance was a payoff for how we treated the film!
Check out the full interview below!
