Writer and director Jane Spencer’s new film, South of Hope Street, is available to watch now on Prime Video. Starring the likes of William Baldwin, Michael Madsen, Judd Nelson, and a plethora of new acting talent and established indie starlets, South of Hope Street is a film unlike many that you will have seen, in all the right ways.
It’s 2038. War World 3 is underway. Black boots rule. Mystery and nonconformity are forbidden in a society stridently ignoring the fact that two moons have appeared in the sky. The earth is reaching a tipping point and the government starts building a giant wall in the sky to hide the truth. But Denise (Tanna Frederick) and her alienated friends, including Tom (Judd Nelson) and a group of mountain-dwelling hippies led by Benjamin Flowers (Michael Madsen), decide to fight back…
To coincide with the digital release of South of Hope Street, THN spoke to Jane Spencer to find out more about the film’s journey from script to screen.
When did the idea for South of Hope Street first come to you, and what was it about the idea that has kept you invested over the years?
I first got the idea when I was riding in a car in New York. I looked up and I thought “what if I saw something that really was abstract and strange in the sky, like two moons rather than one? Because the moon was just coming up and it was still daytime. I thought that’s an interesting idea. Then I had the thought of a young girl who saw this strange phenomenon in the sky. How would people react to it? Would they ignore it? Would they consider it? Once you get used to it, would they just consider it normal? Then of course I had all those Orwellian thoughts, would people not like something odd and different to appear? Could they use it? Or would they ignore it and try to keep people’s minds on what they want people’s minds on? It came from a very philosophical beginning, and then I had to form a plot around it, and characters. It took a while.
Although dreamt up and filmed several years ago, the film feels oddly more relevant than ever. How have you found watching society drift closer to aspects of South of Hope Street?
Well, I think something just happened yesterday, which really frightened me. I think there’s a huge… and I didn’t know this at the time, when I first wrote it, but maybe somewhere in the air for everybody, but I think there’s a lot of, let’s say right wing elements, coming up in the world. Even after all the progress we made in the past 30 or 40 years, it seems like we’re going backwards in a certain way, and in Europe, and certainly I just found out in the United States it’s worse than I thought.
I think this film, I hope is some kind of a ‘putting it out there’, that this is where it could go. I don’t know, maybe it’s already there. The film is definitely a metaphor. The wall… I actually got that from Trump saying, “let’s build a wall.” I thought, “okay, how about if they build a wall against mystery or the unknown?” That was my concept. I have sayings in there that are a few Trumpisms, like he says to one of the guys, “this is only for our people”, “our people first”, and this kind of thing. I laced it through there because this was coming up when I was working on the film. I just thought this is so weird I’m going to put it out there that, “yeah, you know you guys can all go vote for Trump, or other dictator-like people, but this is what you’ll get.” That’s my and many other people’s idea from what I’m finding out. We feel the same way that we’re headed not in a good direction right now. We’ve got to really be strong about holding on to what we believe in. Well meaning people, who let’s say, are less, for lack of a better word, right-wing, super hyper conservatives.
In the past you’ve described working on your first feature, Little Noises, as being in boot camp. How have lessons that you learned on that project shaped how you have worked on subsequent projects?
Yes, I’ve always been a producer on all the rest of my films. I’ve always been a producer because I found that when you are only a writer-director, you tend to do a lot of producing anyway. Bringing cast, working on getting financed, everything. Also it’s a question of controlling the film, and making sure that whatever the vision is, does not get tampered with. I learned to have a little bit of power, or actually a lot of power on what I present now.
Every film set tends to be a bit chaotic, so that’s nothing new. I guess I got used to that too. Actors all have different personalities, and you deal with all the personalities, but ultimately it’s what they bring to the project on screen that matters. So rather than get upset about it, I just deal with it, because if they’re giving me a great performance, or giving the film a great performance, then the rest doesn’t matter. That’s what I kind of came to as a conclusion.
We have to talk about your cast – how did you get everybody together, and why was it important for you to include a mixture of actors and not just superstars?
I love to do that because frankly my favourite films are neo-realist films or early French films. Often they just used people who weren’t even actors. Fellini always used background people and just regular people in a lot of roles, and I love his work. It was great because ultimately every actor in this movie really came through as far as portraying the character, as I envisioned the character. That’s the most important thing, not whether they’re a name or not. Of course, finance dictates that you do have names in the movie and even those that were names, they’re people who really encompass the role that they’re given. Like Billy Baldwin, as the exact opposite of who he is, as this guy who pushes this agenda of not understanding what the two moons are, and he’s afraid of them, and is clinging to right-wing ideas and pushing them on others because of his fear.
Then I have a complete unknown, like Angelo Boffa, who plays the professor, who’s just starting and he’s going to win an award here for emerging actor. Tanna Frederick, who I’ve seen in a lot of independent films, she’s just been completely dedicated to bringing forth this character, who’s in a way, me in the world; let’s say the author’s viewpoint of how weird everything is, and all these things hitting her. Then there’s the new actors that you probably haven’t heard of from Switzerland like Patricia Negri, who plays Xenia, the roommate. She’s a very nice person, but she’s brilliant playing this very selfish, in her own universe, person. They all interpreted, including Maximilian [Preisig], who plays the young nephew of Judd Nelson’s character.
I think Judd is amazing in this role. As this guy living in a trailer, writing poetry to save the world, not understanding that’s not really going to work, but it’s worth a try. I think Michael Madsen is hilarious as a kind of a hippie guy, but not really. Some of them are household names, and they all just bring this concoction together beautifully in my opinion, as far as their work. I like to mix names with complete unknowns, I really do.
You filmed in the Swiss Alps, what do you think that that setting brings to the story?
I wanted a place where they go, where it’s remote, where they have their own natural world they’re trying to cling to. What I like is the clash of the natural world with the industrial feel of this area of Zurich where I filmed. So I clash these two areas to make a point with the visuals.
Your second unit camera, Fiona Bavinton, also works in special effects. Given the nature of South of Hope Street, how advantageous was her knowledge base?
It was great because I’m no expert at special effects. I trained more with actors, and of course I have a visual idea of what I want to do. But she was amazing, and she helped with these special effects by letting us know what we were setting up for the post-production. Then in post-production, Marc Holthuizen did a lot of work, as well as Fiona and a company out of Croatia. Marc mostly visualised the world after talking to me. Obviously, we don’t have a Star Wars budget, or a big budget Ridley Scott thing going on here, so we had to make it lo-fi.
Why do you hope that people check out South of Hope Street?
Well I hope that they will watch the film and enjoy it and find it interesting. I’m certain they will find it unusual (laughs) and sometimes that’s good to see a film that doesn’t follow the exact patterns you think it will. Hopefully they’ll feel something, some compassion and maybe some identification with some of the characters, especially being a loner in a world like that, which is Tanna’s role. Everything else bounces off of her. She walks through this maze of strange characters and strange rules. I hope that people quite frankly, see it as…it’s just my thought on it, but I’m sure it’s many others too…to maybe not veer so hard right, because you don’t know how you’re going to end up, and maybe not go for bully boy dictators, as who you put your trust in. Because you might just end up caged really, and not see the wonders of the world and the strangeness of the world, because you conform to their reality.
South of Hope Street will be released in the UK on Amazon Prime from November 12, 2024 and on Paramount+ from November 15, 2024, courtesy of Ward9 Productions.
