
A truly collective production, led by multi-hyphenate creatives Luke Eberl and Edgar Morais from cross-continental Volpana_ productions with an enthralling lead performance from co-writer Whitney Able, We Won’t Forget opens with an almost imperceptibly weighted energy as we are swept through a buzzing LA party and into a whirlwind of progressively inexplicable shifting emotions. Eberl and Morais wanted to explore the increasingly worrying complex relationship we have with social media and herd mentality; both of which can cause us to lose all sense of reason and decorum. We Won’t Forget – filmed on super 16mm which presents dreamy visuals befitting the communal haze that comes over the group of friends as their host crumbles in front of their eyes – is a film rich in commentary about groupthink and our instinct to capture even the slightest social infraction for digital consumption. We speak to the directorial duo about their intuitive working relationship, taking a fluid approach to the choreography and strategically switching film stock making peace with shifting weather filming on two daylight stocks.
We Won’t Forget strikes me as an experimental but consciously structured piece of work, tell us how it came to be.
Luke Eberl: The initial idea came to us at a birthday party where we reconnected with our friend Whitney Able and we immediately started meeting regularly, brainstorming ideas, and discussing different concepts. We were drawn to the idea that would become We Won’t Forget, a story about a character who lets her emotions spill out during a party, causing a chaotic situation where everyone becomes involved, and the lines between victim and enabler blur.
We knew from the beginning we wanted to shoot on film. Our camera was an Arri SR3 which allowed us to work with a small crew, five people including the two of us, and minimal lighting so we could stay nimble and adjust quickly without major disruptions while capturing the look we wanted and also visually differentiate it from the familiar look of phone-shot video. Although we filmed the movie in just two days, post-production took a year. Because of the way we filmed, with some improvised moments, and the way we like to work, we wanted to allow for discoveries during editing.


I always want to know more about the dynamics in directorial duos. How did you two come together and how do you split your roles throughout production?
LE: We met in 2008 and have collaborated in different capacities on a few different projects since. It’s interesting – I don’t think either one of us thinks, in theory, that having two directors is ever a good idea, although some of our favorite films are in fact directed by two people, but for us, this partnership has sprung forth very organically and it has worked out so far. We are very distinct, and quite different individuals, but somehow we’ve found a way to operate where we elevate each other’s work and, on the films we’ve made together, we have never felt that we conceded anything artistically to the other – quite the opposite.
We’ve found a way to operate where we elevate each other’s work.
Edgar Morais: One of the reasons it works, obviously, is that we do inherently have a similar taste when it comes to cinema. We don’t have an exact system for how we split roles, it tends to unfold intuitively, and it can be different from project to project, and when it gets to the point where something works for both of us, we just know it. Naturally, we disagree and argue all the time, but it is ultimately beneficial for the films and that’s what we care about.

I know you had an established relationship with Whitney but how did you look for and ensemble the other 25 actors in your ensemble?
EM: We have both lived for many years, at different times, in Los Angeles where we shot the film. The cast is mostly made of up people that we know as friends or that we have worked with in the past. It was really important to us that it didn’t feel like there was one main character and then a bunch of generic extras.
We told everyone that we were expecting them to do the kind of acting that is maybe the most difficult – the kind of acting that doesn’t feel like acting at all.
LE: We really wanted to have 25 actual distinct characters who were believable and that you could imagine existing outside the borders of the film. We told everyone that we were expecting them to do the kind of acting that is maybe the most difficult – the kind of acting that doesn’t feel like acting at all – but that we wouldn’t have invited them to be in the film if we didn’t know that they could pull it off. And they did.
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I read that you wrote a very practical and technical script. Were you able to stick to it during the shoot.?
EM: The script we wrote with Whitney over the course of several months was at first focused on the themes of the film and the inner life of the character, which then did become a document that was technical in terms of movement and blocking certain aesthetic details that had to be precisely planned in order to pull off the film within a two-day shoot. Some of the dialogue was in the script, and some was defined on the day with the actors.
LE: There were some things we planned that we didn’t have time for, but we are used to working on a tight schedule and changing plans and reinventing things quickly. It actually ends up being one of the most fun parts of filmmaking, when things don’t go according to plan and you have to discover new solutions in the moment, those kinds of situations are really where some of the best ideas tend to come from.

I want to know if there was a defined choreography and how you planned that gradual descent into chaos.
LE: The dancing sequence was one of the early and foundational ideas for the film, and we knew it would be a key moment. Whitney has a background in dance and Charles-Curtis Sanders is a professional dancer, but we didn’t want it to appear choreographed.
EM: It needed to feel spur of the moment, amateur, and a little dangerous. We talked about basic positioning for the camera but the choreography itself was all them. Whitney and Charles-Curtis really nailed that moment.
LE: Yes, they performed that beautifully. Whitney is brilliant in the film.
We would strategically change film stocks when necessary.
Did the ever-changing lighting over your tight shoot pose any issues?
LE: Yes, but we made it work, there’s no other choice, no use in complaining about the weather. We shot on super 16mm film on two daylight stocks, the Kodak 50D 7203 and 250D 7207, so we would strategically change film stocks when necessary, and then, of course, we made final adjustments with our colorist Andreia Bertini, who did an excellent job.


We live in a digitally obsessed age, if you went for brunch and didn’t post it on Instagram did it actually happen? However, it is also a useful and vital tool. What were you looking to say about that dichotomy with We Won’t Forget?
EM: It’s simply an observation of behavior, collective hysteria, groupthink. But yes the omnipresence of cameras nowadays exacerbates an issue that really has existed throughout history, it just disseminated and spread in other ways and at different speeds back then. There has always been a general cloud of awkwardness and skepticism of people’s intentions that permeates many situations. This is as old as humanity itself.
LE: But now it is greatly accelerated in a time when online social platforms are for many people the dominant source of their self-worth, their social capital, and the determining factor of whether people hold each other in high regard, or even respect each other. We wanted to create a scenario that could feel like the physical manifestation of the predatory social media algorithms in the real world, but also an observation of timeless human dynamics.
The weaving between groups, shifting of angles and the general cacophony you captured must have led to a complex edit.
EM: Yes, that would be an understatement. It took about a year to edit.
LE: We went through many versions of the film. What we were aiming to achieve is very delicate in terms of tension, tone and pacing.

I also want to know about the isolation of the various group chats going on which you have layered together fabulously to serve as the siren song she is so entranced by.
EM: The audio edit was very complex too, and the sound mix that we did with Hugo Leitão was extremely detailed and painstaking.
LE: It is like working with music, building climaxes, crescendos, dynamics, all with the dialogue.
EM: It’s a cacophony but with certain phrases or words puncturing the madness into comprehension.
Please tell us what’s next for you both.
EM: We are currently editing two features that we are directing together. A documentary called It Was Them which we started filming in 2014 in Paris that follows a group of friends from South Central LA who immigrated to France. And a narrative feature that we shot in a small village in Portugal from a script I wrote.
LE: We also have a long-term project that we started filming in 2011 in Los Angeles that we don’t want to talk about much yet because we are still filming on and off. Otherwise, we both have several ideas for films, some we will work on together, and some we want to direct separately. We are also both actors and have some projects coming up. I have also recently finished a solo piano album. Edgar is directing a different film and has upcoming photography exhibitions.