Filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson, A Woman’s Perspective on Horror Films

Director He said. The futureArkasha Stevenson was destined to become a journalist-photographer. He took lessons for it after high school in Los Angeles. And he will work, for a while, for it Los Angeles Times. “I really enjoyed doing it until I discovered David Lynch’s films. My heart and mind exploded.”he recalls. According to him, the first films he will make will be deeply informed by the journalist’s experience.

In 2015, his short film, ships, The story of a transsexual who plans a dangerous surgery to enhance her femininity has won the Iris Prize for LGBT work. The interest awakened by his film opened the door to television, for which he prepared episodes of serials. He remembers the filming PineappleFilmed with Tim Smith in a ghost town near Yosemite. All local residents joined the shooting: “It was a community film experience. »

The plot of the prequel from He said (1976), developed by Richard Donner (1930-2021) over the years. One of the producers offered to read it. Arkasha Stevenson admits that she approached it with some skepticism. “All these prerequisites or sequels It is often disappointing He said It is such an extraordinary film. How can we compete? Then Tim Smith and I read the script and noticed that this is the first time in the entire franchise that the main character is a woman. That’s what made us happy. »

For Arkasha Stevenson and her writing partner, the whole story revolved around birth. “It gave us an opportunity to talk about anatomy, to feminize what we call issues body horror And the materialization of my most intimate fears. There are many women in this story, which takes place in an orphanage for young girls, and what we were interested in was describing the relationships between them. »

Political speech

This desire to emphasize the feminine issues of the story convinced the studio managers. “At the heart of the film is the initial trauma repressed by the main character, which is more important than the purely supernatural elements of the story. » Should we also see, in setting this story in Italy in the early 1970s, a specific political discourse?

Arkasha Stevenson admits that the real subject of the film is not the devil, but the spirituality of terror and how it is used as a political weapon. “The situation in Italy at that time, with the emergence and activity of neo-fascist groups, is unfortunately quite close to what is happening in America today.”, He judges. While scouting, while visiting an exhibition on the Shoah in Rome, he came across a quote from Hitler: “If we have terror, we don’t need God. » A terrifying statement that will be the deep heart of his film.