On adapting personal history to the screen:

“As a filmmaker, I find the bond between mother and daughter to be so provocative and powerful. For many women, this relationship can be so critical: our mothers are usually our first role models for womanhood. There are just so many raw emotions and societal expectations tied to motherhood to unpack!

My relationship with my mother was (and still is) intimate, very open, flawed and of course, very complex. Sometimes we acted more like girlfriends together. My friends would flock to her for advice, as she is so easy to talk to and loving. Our house was always open, and everyone was welcome. The boys that attended these little gatherings would treat her like she was part of our group. The boundaries between us were often blurred. There was an intimate tenderness and thrilling danger to it all. I honestly didn’t realize that our relationship was so special until I was much older, and I honestly wouldn’t be the person I am today without her.

As I continued to explore these characters and take them to a darker, fictional trajectory, the autobiographical elements did really help to ground the story.” 

On starting with details to inform writing dialogue in a script:

“I find dialogue so hard to write! I really struggle with it. As a filmmaker, I’m definitely more attuned to the visual elements and gestural details rather than dialogue.

At the inspired instruction of a Columbia Professor, I started the scripting process by first creating an epic document with a detailed backlog of different memories. From little tender details I remembered with my mum, outrageous moments from gatherings, and everything else in between. It became the inspiration but also the backbone for the entire story and was so helpful to turn to when I was crafting these intimate scenes. I’ve incorporated this memory backlog ‘method’ into a lot of my current projects in development, even for scripts that are genre or aren’t as deeply personal. It definitely helps me find fun dialogue options and ground characters and moments in authenticity. It’s a really tricky but cathartic experience.” 

On threading the line of a complex relationship:

“This was a particularly hard line to tread. In writing this film, I knew that no matter how I approached this relationship, the audience is always going to have judgements about the nature of their bond. Their unique girlfriend/sisterly bond is usually a trope for comedy: in another universe, Michelle is the Juicy Couture wearing ‘cool mum’ of Regina George, the brassy Marissa Cooper of ‘The OC,’ or the witty Lorelai from ‘Gilmore Girls.’ I wanted to steer clear of this tone and interpretation at all costs, and ground their relationship in realism with a raw mix of toxic and tender moments.  

One element that really helped was to shift subjectivity between mother and daughter protagonists. As the film unfolds, we begin to share more and more intimate moments with Michelle. I’ll admit that having two protagonists in a short film is a wild idea and was particularly challenging to implement structurally. I honestly don’t blame my classmates that struggled with the idea when I was workshopping it, but I knew that it would add this identification that was needed with the mother character and make their collective journey more relatable.”

On the challenges of making a student project:

“We had a few interesting challenges throughout all stages of production. From the personal nature of the writing, to the at times tiring nature of crowdfunding, to the ever-changing weather on set, working with heaps of energetic teenage extras, and wrangling animals and insects in shots. But the real challenge was orchestrating post-production back in the United States.

Post-production took an entire year to complete due to a lack of funding. Here I was editing the film between jobs, classes, and film shoots when I could. ‘Tangles and Knots’ is the deepest I’ve gone in writing something semi-autobiographical and it was a little hard at first to see the film objectively during the edit. It ended up being a blessing in disguise to be stuck in post-production for so long as I really got to challenge the editing structure.

In the end, I collaborated with another editor, Chelsea Taylor and a few other Columbia peers to help get an objective view of the edit. Through this collaboration, I found that the unspoken moments between Michelle and Laura exposed much more about their relationship. Once the edit was locked, we then had to organize ADR with a few of our actors which were predominantly located back in Australia. So then we had a bit of a struggle orchestrating the sessions back home at a time when I and all of our talent would be in the country together. The fun challenges of scheduling!”  

On choosing to shoot the film in Australia:

“To be honest, I thoroughly enjoy shooting in both countries. However, the location choice for this project was purely a creative one. I was pretty adamant about shooting back in my homeland of Australia given the personal inspiration of the story. The specificity of this world was of the utmost importance. Although the film could have translated to an American setting, it would have drastically changed many story elements and details: everything from character to production design, locations and even sound design.

I’ve found shooting in the United States and Australia very similar, save for a few things. The days are shorter on Australian sets, there’s no chance misunderstanding of my accent, the coffee is stellar, and if you ever turn up late-onset, you better be buying a slab of beer for production.” 

The mood is light, fun, and positive, but these sequences are juxtaposed against more somber ones with just the friend and girl as they retrace the steps from before. Director Bram Schouw smartly parallels those conflicting states of adventure and hindsight to draw you deep into their world. The structure is disarming, causing many different outcomes to shoot through your mind, while still leaving the climax a surprise. Schouw captures that complicated mantra championed by mom’s worldwide, “It’s always fun until someone gets hurt,” with surprising realism and honesty. The result is an original and brave take on friendship and the bonds created during adventure and misadventure. Even if we unravel, we can still be put back together—maybe not as perfect as before, but just as strong.

Bram Schouw graduated with honors at the Utrecht School of the Arts. His graduation film, Marriage, was the official opening movie for Curta Cinema Rio de Janeiro in 2005. Impasse, his second short film, has its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2008 and was selected at renowned film festivals in New York, Sarajevo, and Paris. Sevilla won a Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival and screened in over 50 international film festivals, winning multiple awards. Together with the same team, Schouw just finished a new short film called All Those Sunflowers and is developing his first feature film, Broers, which is scheduled to go into production in 2015.