APOCALYPSE NOW: THE ANDREW ROBERTSON AND LILLY KANSO INTERVIEW

Under their New York-based Passerby Film banner, the team of director Andrew Robertson and producer Lilly Kanso shot the gritty, post-apocalypse thriller The Mansion in the eerie abandoned middle class suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia over 19 days in the fall of 2011. The long journey from script to screen has been a labour of love for the pair, who are about to premiere their gripping, moving film to an enthusiastic Australian audience. SCREEN-SPACE spoke with them ahead of the screening of The Mansion at the A Night of Horror Film Festival on April 18.

The 'post-apocalyptic' genre is a tough one to freshen up. What differentiates The Mansion?

Andrew: The post-apocalyptic genre is so popular right now and we feel it taps into much of the same fascination people have had with westerns. It's like the neo-western in a sense. The two genres share a lot in common, in that they basically put modern humans in a paradigm of lawlessness and then watch to see how they treat each other. When you watch a western, you know the genre instantly. There is no need to explain the setting at the outset..."In the late 19th/early 20th century America, the west was a lawless, uncivilized land, etc..." We all know the deal and there's no need to over explain. I think the post-apocalyptic genre has reached that point. There's no need to explain, we all recognize that human life and the societies we've constructed can be quite tenuous. We have a lot of extinction anxiety, which is what accounts for the fact that our movies, tv shows and video games are all obsessed with the genre. What differentiates The Mansion is that it doesn't try to explain what happened to civilization. I mean, it hints that there was a plague, but it just accepts that you hopefully know the genre and don't need over explaining. Also, it's an intimate film that hopefully portrays what life would really be like after the fall of society. There would be a lot of waiting. Life would be quite slow and there would be a lot of vigilance in dealing with other humans. 

Is it a pessimistic film? It could be interpreted as suggesting that society implodes without a structured order or government control in place.

Andrew: I suppose it is pessimistic in that people treat each other pretty poorly in the movie. But don't want to over think it too much, because the truth is when we make movies and tv shows about the post-apocalypse we're just playing with the idea. We're not taking it very seriously. We like adventure movies and thrillers, because they are entertaining and let us pretend. But if we really wanted to honestly explore our darkest fears about the end of the world, there would be no swelling, anthemic music and heroic grandiosity. We would all split our time between being terrified and bored out of our minds. I guess The Road did that pretty effectively. But I wasn't interested in doing a bleak film like The Road. I grew up on Raiders of the Lost Ark and Terrence Malick. I wanted to do something more fun and hopefully a little bit thoughtful.

The ensemble seems very tight. What was explored during the rehearsal period?

Andrew: Our cast had a natural chemistry from day one and there weren't any rehearsals. We have always felt that bad acting is the achilles heel of small indie films and that it's worth the time and investment in picking solid actors to sell the story. 
Lilly: But that they had such a strong chemistry between them right off the bat was something we really didn't anticipate. A lot of this we attribute to the trappings of being a low budget film. We rented a house for them all to live in and it really paid off. They actually lived together, in a real suburban Georgia house throughout the shoot. So, they lived together in their post-apocalyptic house scrounging for food and struggling to survive by day, then rode home together, made dinner together, and basically spent time bonding by night. I think this is significant, because we really couldn't have afforded to put them up in their own hotel rooms. But it really played into their dynamics in the film-- they were a real family, on and off camera (pictured, l-r; Kanso, cast members Carter Roy, Chris Kies and Sebastian Beacon, and Robertson). 

How difficult is it to direct a child actor in scenes such as the final confrontation? This extraordinary young actress seemed to be very in the moment. 

Andrew: We based the character of the young daughter in the film on our niece Eva (pictured, right). She was always in our minds and so when it came time to cast the role, we decided why not just use Eva. We know her, we're a close family, we all speak the same language... so why not? We did entertain casting experienced young actors and auditioned the part with a handful of kids, but Eva was a natural and she really wanted to do it. Working with her was a fantastic experience because she's a real kid. She's not an actor. So you didn't get a young performer, you got the reactions and reads of an actual kid, which really felt right for the often solemn mood of this close family unit living in isolation. There was an austerity to how she carried herself that worked really well for the film. As for the final scene: this was one of the final scenes of the film, so Eva was very seasoned by that point. Plus, there wasn't much for her to do beyond clinging to her mother as a sadist held a gun to their heads, so, I think she pulled it off pretty effectively.

The Mansion - Trailer : www.themansionfilm.com from Passerby Films on Vimeo.