Interview: NIGHTSIREN Writer-Director Tereza Nvotova
by Tori Potenza, Staff Writer
In September I got the chance to review the Slovakian genre film Nightsiren. The movie had a small theatrical run here in the states and is now available to rent on most VOD platforms. The film is all centered around real life pockets of Slovakia where people still believe in witches, and the evil they can bring to their homes. With the current state of the world we are no strangers to conspiracy theories and patriarchal systems that still work to put women down. Writer-director Tereza Nvotová is quite familiar with the conservative and misogynistic systems that harm women and treat them as less than. She beautifully blends the traditions, folklore, and current events of her country into her new feature.
I got the chance to set up a zoom chat with Tereza and discuss her film. The love and enthusiasm for the subject matter truly showed through as we discussed Nightsiren. I was able to gain some fascinating insight into her process and how she worked to blend horror, drama, and natural photography into her movie. Along the way we discussed many important themes and topics like challenging narratives about witches, questioning traditions that uphold the status quo, and discussing freedom, connection, and overcoming trauma. It was a delightful conversation and reminded me of all the reasons Nightsiren spoke to me so much.
MovieJawn: Well, I utterly adored your movie. But first off just what inspired you to make Nightsiren?
Tereza: Oh, I would say the first idea came from Barbara, the screenwriter, who I wrote the movie with. She read this book, a scientific anthropologist book about how in Slovak modern villages, they still believe in witches. And, it's called The Enemy Within and it's just describing the dynamics of the group, and what kind of women these communities would choose and why and what was the procedure of thinking like, OK, this has to be a witch or something. And this was very surprising because, I know Slovakia is not very known for Americans, but it's a normal country in the European Union and we grew up in a city so it was surprising for us. But at the same time we were thinking about how the world is full of conspiracy and people really believing in all kinds of crazy stuff.
It was not that surprising. Plus Slovak society is super ultra conservative, I would say. So it wasn't surprising to target women who are just trying to live a different life. So, she came with this book and, and then she started to write a story like a first treatment and we also connected with the place that we actually know from childhood, or from our cabin that we go every year and it's like this 100 year old cabin in the woods. And it's above this village where we actually shot the movie. But we didn't shoot in the cabin because I didn't want to burn it. So it's still there. And we knew the last person who actually lived there was this woman Otila who would walk barefoot and people were afraid of her. So she inspired us for the character of Otila. And then we were working on the story for two years to put it together.
MJ: Wow. It's cool that there is some of that personal connection embedded in the story, with the town and Otila.
Tereza: Most of the people were afraid to talk to her. But I had some women who told me that she was nice and she was just, you know, this kind of outcast in the town.
MJ: That's amazing because that seems like such a fantastical element of the story. But she was someone that you just knew of. So, for me, the moment the movie started, it just felt so spellbinding and like entrancing and that feeling never went away. Everything from the visuals, to the writing, and the performances. So I guess, from your as a director, how do you embed that tone and create that atmosphere in your production?
Tereza: Thank you. I mean, it’s hard to say because, that's basically what my whole job is. But I would say I had the idea how to make this because I wanted to play with the genres. But at the same time, I wanted to make the movie very authentic, almost in this sort of documentary reality.
And to connect these two kinds of sides, which are usually very far away. Either you have something that is supernatural and fantastical or you have something that is, like Darden Brothers. You know, just fiction films, but very close to documentaries. So, and I knew that I'm strong in that kind of stuff, in authenticity, in drama, but the genre was something very new to me. And that's why I was much more intrigued by it and being like, ok, let me try this and, and let me try to play with it. This is what I love about movies, that you can always challenge yourself, and just discover new things. So I didn't try to go like, “ok, I want this movie to look like some other movie”. I was just trying to find its own language and that took me a long time because one thing is that you write it, you imagine it, then you shoot it and it changes all the time.
I would say the hardest part is the editing room where you have to put all of this together and it never works the way you imagine. So you have to create it again. For example, that scene that is now in the beginning that was in the middle according to the script. I kind of redid the order in the editing room. Just trying to understand the language of the movie was hard because it's, you know, it's just something new. I would say the best thing for me was that I had time to do that.
MJ: You mentioned the blending of genre. Did you think of this as a horror movie when you were making it or is that something that just naturally came through with the subject material that you were dealing with?
Tereza: Yeah, I didn't give myself boundaries but, just according to my taste, I like atmospheric horrors. I like that blending of the genres in terms of like, we are still in a very grounded world and then something crazy could happen, and I like always being somewhere on the border of this. So, I didn't think much about horror because I didn't feel like I knew how to do the horror really.
But it was more about going with the emotion, like, you know, this is a scary moment. I need to feel fear and I'm going with the character. So this is how I'm going to shoot it and without really thinking about, like, how exactly does the genre.
MJ: How did you tie these very regional and personal ideas to more universal themes and issues?
Tereza: I would say that all this folklore stuff is something that is very Slovic, I didn't have to go very far because most of these traditions we still do every year. So it wasn't like, oh I need to find some traditions for this village to do. This is something that is happening. So, it's more about thinking about like, I'm gonna put these traditions in the story because they say something when you're thinking about, why do people believe in witches?
And then why do we, do you know all these crazy rituals? And we don't even question them, we just do them because that's where we are born. And then when you start to question it, you see like, oh, this is just to make us believe in the status quo. This is more about “man belongs here, woman belongs here”. Or ‘this is what we should honor and if it's not this way, then it's wrong and let's call these witches”. Or “let's go against it because it is going against our order”. I think this is, this kind of closed thinking that is universal, even though you have different kinds of traditions. Corners of the world, the sort of thinking where you're just trying to protect something that is inherently misogynistic. All this home violence and everything that is just trying to keep order, in a way that it is not equal to everyone who lives there. In order to do that, you need to use the violence, you need to use some sort of beliefs and all the tools because it's almost like a cult but within the bigger society.
So I think this is something that we see everywhere. This is just a more extreme version of it. And that's why I think it could speak to anyone. Plus it is interesting for people from the outside because they don't know these traditions at all.
MJ: Another element I wanted to discuss is Natalia Germani. I thought her performance was incredible. And had like so many different layers and facets that come out as you're spending more time with her. So how did you work together to kind of bring the character of Sarlotato life?
Tereza: It was a long process to even find her. took me a year. Even in this small country, it took me a year to find the actress for this role because she's a very complex character. I was looking for someone who has all these shades in their personality and in their acting and it's not like being pushed because the camera can basically see through you.
So you really have to have these emotions inside of you when you are in front of the camera. So then I found Talia when she was nine months pregnant. They didn't even call her for the casting because they were like, oh, she's pregnant she's not going to act. I was like “really that, that's what you decided?”.
Yeah. So then she came and she was great and we started to work on the character because I didn't know Natalia before, as a person and I like to get to know my actors also as people. Not just, not because I need to know them, but because I think if I know them, I know better how to help them to be the character and what parts of their own personality they can borrow.
So we were meeting a lot over the script and talking and then I took them to my cabin, this core cast. I think Natalia was great because she was also very happy getting this role because she's very pretty and usually she would play princesses. And so she was like, oh, finally I can play a normal woman. So she really gave everything to it and I think you can see it on the screen.
And she also said it was interesting, just the fact that she gave birth just before we were shooting. She said that really helped her to even go further in, in navigating that character even though the character doesn't have a baby, but she has an abortion and that somehow, you know, got connected emotionally.
MJ: To wrap things up, what do you hope that audiences take away from Nightsiren?
Tereza: I don't have one message but just the fact that we were working with the witches. it's funny because you always see movies, not always, but mostly the movies that are about witches, you see this evil woman doing evil things. It's like we are still in the middle ages and we wanted to just change that narrative because as you said, really, witches are just rebellious women, who have been persecuted over the centuries up till today in a different kind of way. So, that is something that I'm happy this movie could do. But also give people a movie where they can identify with a character like Sarlota, and what she’s going throughI think we don't have enough movies like this. And it was funny because in Slovakia, I had very different kinds of comments from people.
But a lot of men came to me and they said that there are not many positive male characters and they didn't know who to identify with. And I'm like, so you couldn't identify with a woman? You have to have a person with a penis to identify with them? You know, that says so much about our culture because I have no problem identifying with the male characters.
Maybe the last thing I would say about the message, I didn't wanna make a movie where it's all just, just this like social criticism and it ends up bad. I think that social criticism is just one part of the movie. But for me, the movie is about freedom, how to find it in yourself and then how to fight for it in society. And it's also about connection because, you know, the two characters, Mira and Sarlota, the way they find that connection between each other. I think that's so important because we all have these movies about superheroes and how one person is against evil and how one person is going to win it all. And I just think in this era of individualism, we really need to understand that connection is something that we cannot live without, we cannot be happy without, you know.