Joining the impressive roster of National Film and Television School (NFTS) students whose films have screened at Cannes and have also joined us on DN for interviews in recent years – including Killing Boris Johnson, Bunnyhood and Other Half – on the 21st of May Vida Skerk’s Ether will have its world premiere as part of Cannes’ La Cinef selection. Skerk stands unique with her nuanced and profoundly complex dive into fragile power dynamics, the subtle tremors of interpersonal tension and consent being the only NFTS first-year project to be accepted to the festival. Skerk approached her production with a clear comprehension of restrained filmmaking, where every frame is carefully calibrated to explore the complex psychological terrain between two characters through their faces, shifts in body language and carefully constructed negative spaces. Ether is a delicate dance of writing, performance and directorial vision, and Skerk navigates a challenging terrain between realism and her innate surrealist sensibilities, creating a short film that feels simultaneously intimate and unnerving. As she prepares for her Cannes premiere next week, we took some time with Skerk to talk about learning how to apply her directorial voice to a narrative she hadn’t written whilst respecting the writer’s script and intentions, needing to shoot a one hit wonder for a crucial scene as the very last shot of production and having her actors run down hills as emotional prep for a static dramatic exchange.
At what point did you become involved with the project and did you have any part in shaping the narrative as the script was written?
From the very start, Niky Pasolini’s treatment included the crucial elements of the story: its complexity, subtlety, and nuance. Both producer Dora Galosi and myself were involved in the writing process from the start. During this time, I tried my best to protect Niky’s voice and her intent, while also creating a directorial vision in my mind that stayed true to my own voice. It can be quite overwhelming to get so many differing notes from different people during the development stage, and you can get lost along the way. What helped in making sure we didn’t lose a sense of direction was that all three of us had a clear common vision from the start of what we emotionally wanted to convey. Niky is a great writer, and we trusted her voice – she delivered majestically. This film is not really the type of film I usually make. I mostly make surreal, eerie films that leave realism behind. So this was an interesting challenge for me – finding a way to express my instinctual eeriness within a script that is rooted in realism.
This is a wholly absorbing yet highly sensitive topic conveyed with a powerful subtlety. How did you go about leaning into the right direction across the various components of the production to facilitate that?
Subtlety came quite naturally; it was something everyone on the team, and the actors, felt was at the core of the film, because it was so clearly dictated by the script. I chose a restrained directing style that foregrounds the actors’ performances and enhances them with an overall sense of unease in the atmosphere, or should I say, in the ether. The actors brought this vision to life with extraordinary nuance. Intentional and precise simplicity was needed to keep the focus on the relationship. And when you notice a shift in the camerawork, because everything is so subtle, you know it’s intentional, and you know it’s signalling something important.
Even minute facial movements needed to be read as important shifts in their dynamic.
I knew that I had to leave room for moments of silent tension. My DOP Adenike Oke and I were not afraid of close-ups when they were needed, as even minute facial movements needed to be read as important shifts in their dynamic. We also wanted to accentuate the claustrophobia that the main character starts to feel as the film progresses – and there’s nowhere you can escape when you’re in a close-up.
What motivated your choice for shooting on 16mm and how do you feel the textural qualities of celluloid enhanced the story’s exploration of intimacy and claustrophobia?
Shooting this on 16mm film was a requirement for the First-Year-Film module at the NFTS. But I think this fits the story perfectly. The texture of 16mm film, with its specific graininess and the presence of small mistakes that film inherently has helps to put us in the main character’s headspace. Her vision of the relationship and her view of the world are muddied and uncertain, so why would the audience see this story in a perfectly clear, super sharp, digital 6K image? Her world is messy, and the texture of 16mm film to me has a beautiful, material, human messiness to it as well.
Tell us about casting, building the chemistry between your actors and ensuring you kept true to the delicate balance of power between them, which is almost like a dance.
Our casting director was Jonny Boutwood, and he fully understood what kind of actors we were looking for. He found Billy Bolt for us, and when I saw him auditioning, I knew he’d be the right fit. There was a jitteriness to his performance that I think is crucial to his character. He showed a great ability to hide the character’s feelings under layers of defensiveness – yet you can still feel the insecurity looming underneath. In real life, he’s the loveliest person, I have to say! And so is Laura Kaliger! I’ve known her since my BA studies in Croatia. We both studied at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, and I knew she had since moved to London. We hadn’t worked together before, but I remembered her incredible ability to play subtly while keeping the audience engaged. Something in her acting makes her stand out as incredibly authentic and makes me empathize with her so much every time I see her on screen. She has a potent delicacy to her demeanour that makes her the perfect choice for this role.
We had one day of rehearsals before the shoot, and on set, we spent as much time as possible rehearsing. The AD team took great care of the actors and made sure to give us ample time to rehearse. George Graham, Fallon Parker, Tessa Hemmings, and Lily Bennett – ADs are the backbone of any shoot, and these guys deserve all the praise! Having an intimacy coordinator during the rehearsal and on set was also crucial. Stella Moss was our main IC, with Alexandra Healy also jumping on board. They created a safe working environment for everyone involved. During the rehearsals, Stella introduced amazing improv exercises that helped the actors get comfortable in each other’s proximity, and all four of us created the choreography of the more intimate scenes together.
Back home in Croatia I was heavily involved in the movement against sexual harassment and violence within the film industry and academic circles. So themes like consent and power imbalances have been occupying my mind for a long time – I’m grateful I was given the chance to explore them in a film. It felt cathartic, in a way.
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You mention that Ether diverges from your usual surrealist style. How did you balance your natural inclination toward the surreal with the realism demanded by the script?
In the beginning, I set out to make a fully realistic film as Niky wrote it. It’s an exceptionally strong script for which I had the utmost respect, so I was obsessed with honoring it and doing it justice. At first, I wrongly thought that meant I largely had to leave my surrealist tendencies and sensibilities behind. But then I realized that directing someone else’s script doesn’t mean you have to suppress your own voice. Instead, it’s about finding a way to include both Niky’s and my creative authorship. You have to do both: respect the script and its writer, and your own voice, too. That’s what filmmaking is, in the end – it’s never one person’s film, it’s a collaborative art form at its core. It’s about making something together and making sure every collaborator sees themselves in the film. I think Niky and I had a great collaboration because we both respected each other’s voices. Maria Luiza Munhoz, the editor, was also crucial in capturing this eerie essence – our collaboration often focused on how to make the eeriness shine through without losing focus on the relationship.
I realized that directing someone else’s script doesn’t mean you have to suppress your own voice.
Directing is about interpreting a text, not just recreating it. As a director, your perspective on life and the world around you inevitably influences everything you do. I think my experience of being alive often feels anxious and eerie to the point of feeling surreal, and I can’t direct differently from how I see the world. So my sense of the eerie bled into the film naturally and inevitably, and there were definitely points in the script that allowed it to happen and invited the surrealist elements into it.
For me, a major shift comes through at the 8-minute mark when she is peeling the apple and states, “I want to go to the lake” you really hone in more on their faces and those aforementioned minute facial movements.
I’m glad you caught that! We thought a lot about how, for that scene, the shots need to stay simple, yet a shift must be perceived. There’s a shift of the negative space in their respective shots at a crucial turning point of the scene. Laura’s crucial close-up in that scene was, due to circumstances beyond my control, the last thing we shot. I mean it – the last, last thing. It was the end of the last shoot day. We were running out of time. The sun was setting, and in a forest, you lose light even quicker. We also barely had any film left – possibly not even enough to run the whole take. She had to do a one-hit wonder. We started rolling, it was going nicely, but my knees were trembling. I was focused on the performance, but, meanwhile, so I’ve been told, everyone around me was giving me looks, trying to send me signals to call cut, stress-sweating as they were looking at the numbers on the counter, dramatically running out of film.
Laura managed to act it all out, without feeling rushed, nailing all the beats in the right tempo. When I finally called cut, we literally had only ONE FRAME left. I should’ve asked for that one frame. I should’ve framed it somewhere. I had promised Dora, the producer, that we would not be using any ’emergency rolls’ we’d have to beg the school for if we ran into trouble. I am glad we delivered on that promise. We shot this film on 8 rolls of film – or should I say: 8 rolls, minus one frame. I don’t know why, but when I realised we shot the film exactly in what was given to us – with one frame left, I think that was one of the proudest moments of my life. I know it’s stupid, but I was euphoric. We used all the resources we were given until the very last frame. That is something that everyone on the crew deserves praise for. I’d like to specifically praise Gabrielle Scobie, our 1st AC. I imagine being the focus-puller when shooting on limited rolls of film must have been quite stressful, but she nailed it!
When I finally called cut, we literally had only ONE FRAME left. I should’ve asked for that one frame. I should’ve framed it somewhere.
What challenges did you face filming and editing the car scene, as he really leans into his toxicity, which is an incredibly powerful point in the film?
We did quite a lot of improv and explored different iterations of the scene, leaning into the playfulness that rehearsals can have. The first memory that comes to my mind is how we prepared for the climactic moment of the film, and the characters’ most difficult conversation. In it, Lee, the male character, explodes defensively, while Eva, the main character, tries to defend herself, but is incredibly hurt and vulnerable. She wants to escape. He’s not willing to let her go. I wanted the actors to feel that physically, before trapping them inside the car where the scene actually happens. We were shooting on a hill, so the actors and I stepped out of the car, and I made them rush down the hill, with him trying to catch up to her while they said their lines. They enacted physically what would then be, when actually shooting, expressed only in words. I think that helped. We discovered the true extent of that dramatic moment, which they then had to contain inside the car.
I’d love to know a bit more about the references you leaned into with Ade.
The conversations between Ade and myself centered around how to present the shifts in the characters’ dynamic in a visual way. We opted for a retrained style that keeps the actors’ performances in the forefront, yet subtly comments on the gear changes within the narrative. We also discussed how nature needs to feel like a third character in the film – so on set, it was important to stay present and observant of our surroundings and catch those interesting, fleeting moments that nature gifted to us. Ade had a great eye for spotting intriguing details in nature that fit the tone we were going for.
We discussed Luca Guadagnino’s and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s Call Me by Your Name and kept that as a reference for a subtle, yet effective and precise camera work that focuses on the relationship. The script and our vision for the film had a Romanticism feel to it, so we leaned into that. By Romanticism, I don’t mean joyously romantic but as in: Caspar-David-Friedrich-style, sublime romanticism, where humans feel intoxicated by nature’s overwhelming power over us. There are a few hints of that in the film, especially in a shot at the beginning of the film of Eva from behind as she looks at the lake. So is the shot of the lake on its own, and the details of nature that are crucial to the film’s eeriness. Ade had a great eye for those and was amazing at finding them on the spot, as you can’t plan ahead too much when it comes to what nature is going to look like on the day. There’s a bit of John Everett Millais in the film as well, but less elevated and more real. I had printed out an image of his Ophelia painting, and that was the first page of my working notebook for this film. I think that character is a bit like how the main character in our film feels. I think Laura Kaliger could play a great, strong Ophelia one day. I hope she gets to play that, and I hope I get to see it.
If I had to describe my experience so far at the NFTS in two words, it’s passionate determination.
We are continually impressed by the talent produced by the NFTS. Tell us about the process of forming your team and what studying there has taught you and influenced you as a filmmaker?
We got teamed up by the school for First-Year-Film. I am really glad with everyone who was on our team – you learn so much from your collaborators! I think the school is both helping me solidify who I am as a filmmaker and pushing me outside of my comfort zone, which is also useful, as it helps me discover what my voice is like when put in a different context. A lot of people, including myself, have sacrificed a lot to be here – so I think it makes us all try as hard as we can and make the best out of every opportunity. If I had to describe my experience so far at the NFTS in two words, it’s passionate determination. We’re all doing our absolute best, and I think it shows.
It would be remiss of me to ask how you feel about screening at Cannes.
It’s a dream come true, of course – but also, a dream I never really dared to dream, out of fear I’d just end up being delusional. So it feels crazy, especially because it’s our First-Year-Film, and no First-Year-Film has ever been selected before. When they called me and told me the good news, I first thought it must be a scam. It took me months to accept that it was real and I think it still hasn’t fully hit me yet. It’ll probably fully hit me once I’m in Cannes – I hope I won’t suddenly faint on the red carpet.
And finally, what’s next for you?
Dora and I are currently developing our grad film. It’s a ghost story about a steel factory shutting down and how that impacts, realistically and supernaturally, the local community. We’re also thinking of extending it into a feature script. I am also finishing the post-production on another film I made at the school. This one is about how alienating it feels when you move abroad, taken to the extreme: it’s very uncanny and dreamy, and all the local people in the film are literally faceless. Luckily, I personally do see faces in the UK, and I am starting to feel at home in England. I’m actually enjoying it a lot. After I graduate, I strongly hope I’ll get to develop my career further in the UK, but I am also keen on keeping my eyes open for any opportunities back in the EU.
