Fest Track On Sirk TV Interview: THE SURRENDER [SXSW 2025] - Part I - video Dailymotion

Fest Track

Writer/Director Julia Max and Actress Colby Minifie talk to Fest Track about balance, detail and approach in regards to their film "The Surrender" playing the Midnighter section at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

Transcript

00:00This is Tim Wastbrook from FesTrackOnStreetTV.

00:29I'm here at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

00:59I read it and was like, well, this is, I know exactly who these people are.

01:03And I know, I understand this relationship.

01:06And so, and also it's dealing with something like losing your parent

01:10and taking care of a parent who is sick, which is a horrible thing to be doing.

01:17A beautiful gesture, but like something that's very difficult to do.

01:20And so like being in that space and imagining that,

01:23and then imagine that person dying,

01:24and then imagining your mother wanting to bring them back to life.

01:27It's like a very real thing, very grounded thing.

01:30Yeah.

01:30I mean, I'm like, right, this is where it goes.

01:35But because it's grounded in that family drama, that stuff becomes easy.

01:41Okay.

01:41You know, if the beginning part of the movie was not believable,

01:45you'd be like, why am I in this circle?

01:47What the hell?

01:48You're treating me like a child that was getting in the way.

01:50Oh, fine.

01:51It's my fault that you left.

01:52Is that what you're saying?

01:53Fine, then it is my fault.

01:54No, it is your fault!

01:56That you stayed away so long.

01:57You should have come back sooner.

01:59You should have come back when he was coherent enough to recognize you.

02:02I didn't know how bad it was.

02:03You just kept saying he was doing fine.

02:05I mean, the interesting thing is when we were taking this script around

02:08to producers and financiers and everything,

02:12the note we kept getting, because it's a horror film,

02:14I was like, well, you got to get to the horror stuff faster.

02:17So why don't you just speed it up?

02:19And, you know, just trim all the mother-daughter stuff,

02:21and have all that stuff wrap up by the first act.

02:24Just get into the horror!

02:25Horrible note.

02:26I know, and I kept getting that.

02:28I was like, I don't know.

02:29That's the way to go.

02:30And I actually tried a draft that way.

02:35It really did not work.

02:37Because the thing is, if you don't have that slow build at the beginning,

02:43you don't care about the characters.

02:45And if you don't care about the mother and daughter and their relationship,

02:49and you don't ground the film in reality,

02:51the rest of it becomes completely meaningless.

02:54And it's just, you know, it's random.

02:58It's just for shock value.

03:00Nobody says those kind of things!

03:03I'm not going to go into every excruciating detail.

03:05The weight loss, the vomit!

03:07You should have told me!

03:08You knew he was sick!

03:10And you just didn't want to deal with it.

03:11No, you didn't want to deal with it!

03:13He wanted to die in peace without the chemo.

03:15But you forced him into treatment,

03:17even though the doctor said it wasn't going to save him!

03:18But that's the thing with this story.

03:20It's like, if you get into it too quickly, you jump the shark.

03:23And there's nowhere to go, you know?

03:26And so you have to really kind of give these little pieces bit by bit

03:32so that it feels grounded in reality,

03:36so that it really makes an emotional impact

03:38and is scary when you get to that end bit.

03:41And to your earlier point,

03:44it doesn't feel like I'm having to do too much crazy imagining stuff

03:49because every piece of information has been...

03:52Like, every scene, there's a new piece of information

03:55that she has to deal with.

03:56And then the next scene, it's like, wait, now I have to do what?

03:58And then, oh, it's now we have to contend with this.

04:01And so because each scene is so economical in that way,

04:05like, by the time you get to the circle, it's just like,

04:08okay, now we're...

04:11What? It worked?

04:12But it didn't matter what he wanted.

04:14And it didn't matter what I wanted

04:15because the only thing that ever f***ing matters is what you want!

04:23Go! Go!

04:34Well, the beauty of it is I've got the legend Kate Burton to play with.

04:38And because we both come from theatre,

04:40where we're both very much like,

04:42let's just play and see what this is.

04:44We're both very interested, and you were too,

04:46in the scene study of it.

04:48And what is this person doing to this person at this...

04:52What is this line doing to her?

04:54And what is this line doing to her?

04:56And like, how are we going to...

04:57It could be a theatre play.

04:58I mean, no doubt, but okay.

05:00No, that's...

05:00There is an element to it.

05:02Yeah, yeah.

05:03And that's what attracted me to this,

05:04is that like, there's these long oners,

05:08where it's the scene,

05:10these beautiful scenes between a mother and daughter.

05:13And like, I love a two...

05:15I've been wanting to do a two-hander forever.

05:17And to get to do it with Kate Burton, are you kidding me?

05:21Hello.

05:37I feel like so much of that we got to play with

05:40in the rehearsal process,

05:41which was really wonderful,

05:43because that's where we got to kind of tweak the script

05:46to make it fit more,

05:47and see what things were getting bumped on early,

05:50so that we had time to adjust.

05:51But you had rehearsals.

05:52Yes, a lot of independent.

05:54Yeah, you don't get the time,

05:55but it saves time to have those rehearsals,

05:58because then you're not doing it on set,

06:00and trying to be like,

06:01wait, why is this not working?

06:02We love rehearsal.

06:04Love rehearsal.

06:05Not everybody does.

06:06Do you?

06:07Rehearsal is my favorite thing.

06:10It's my favorite thing.

06:11I like...

06:12Because this is...

06:14We're just trying to...

06:16Like, in theatre, we get a month of it,

06:19and we get to see all the different ways

06:21in which something can play.

06:23And I love to see all the different avenues of something,

06:27and then once the camera's rolling,

06:28you're just like, let's fly.

06:31Thank you for coming, Ivan.

06:33I hope you didn't have any trouble finding the place.

06:50This is Megan.

06:53Does it take away from the instinct of it sometimes,

06:55because you've rehearsed it so much,

06:56or does it open it up?

06:58I think for me, it opens it up.

06:59For some people, it doesn't.

07:00For some people, they're not interested.

07:02But I will say, Kate has...

07:05I really learned a lot from Kate on this,

07:08and I mean, of course.

07:10But she had a really hard job.

07:14I have the job of being on the receiving end of all of it.

07:17She had a job of having to justify all of this behavior.

07:23And she asked questions.

07:26She asked a lot of questions in the rehearsal process.

07:29And she was honest.

07:31She was like, I have a question about this.

07:35She was wondering how it sat in her body,

07:37and she was honest about where things were sitting in her body.

07:40And that was a beautiful thing,

07:41because it meant that we could all get behind Barbara's point of view.

07:48I think it's very important in this movie

07:50to get behind Megan's point of view,

07:51as much as it is to get behind Barbara's.

Fest Track On Sirk TV Interview: THE SURRENDER [SXSW 2025] - Part I

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