2024-12-05
26 分钟Director Levan Akin discusses his new film, Crossing, with fellow Director Victoria Hochberg in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles. In the conversation, he discusses how immersing himself in the community lead to him wanting to make this film, his control over the camera allowing the audience to feel as if they’re exploring the city on their own, and his thought process behind how he chose to handle the reveal at the end of the film. Screened as part of the DGA’s Global Cinema Series, the film tells the story of Lia, a retired teacher, who has promised to find her missing niece. Her search takes her to Istanbul, where she meets a lawyer fighting for trans rights, and gets closer than ever to finding her missing family. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://dga.org/en/Events/2024/Dec2024/GCS_Crossing_1124
I wanted this film to have more of a kind of a novelistic feel to it where I wanted the viewer to sort of feel that they're exploring a place and a city on their own terms.
And, you know, even if my camera starts walking, of course it's very planned out, but I wanted to give that feeling of the camera being like a third eye in the film, like a perspective in the film that's, you know, somebody who's with Leah and Achi who then suddenly decided to, no, I'm going to meander off and check out this boat and, you know, look around a little.
And I like that idea.
Hello and welcome back to the Director's Cut, brought to you by the Director's Guild of America.
In this episode, a woman searches for her long lost relative in director Levin Aiken's crime drama Crossing, which was screened as part of the DGA's Global Cinema Series.
The film tells the story of Leah, a retired teacher who was promised to find her missing niece.
Her search takes her to Istanbul where she meets a lawyer fighting for trans rights and gets closer than ever to finding her missing family.
In addition to Crossing, Aiken's other directorial credits include the feature films and Then We Danced, the Circle and Certain People and episodes of the series Interview with the Vampire.
Following the Global Cinema series screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, Aiken spoke with director Victoria Hochberg about filming Crossing.
Listen on for their spoiler filled conversation.
Hi.
We just finished seeing your wonderful, wonderful film.
Do you hear me?
Yes.
Okay, let's get started.
What brought you to this idea?
Okay.
It was when I was making my previous film and then we danced.
I met a few trans women in Georgia who would go to Istanbul as sex workers.
So that's sort of where the idea came from.