With four features and twice as many short films under his belt, writer-director Kazik Radwanski has become one of the leading lights of Canadian cinema. The Toronto-based filmmaker is part of a community of young independent directors who frequently collaborate with one another, their very different sensibilities inflecting each other’s projects in provocative ways. In his latest film, Matt and Mara, Radwanski has teamed up with two very distinctive actors who also happen to be filmmakers themselves. Matt Johnson’s most recent directorial effort, BlackBerry (2023), premiered in competition at the Berlinale. Johnson’s co-star, Deragh Campbell, has made three films with her frequent creative partner Sofia Bohdanowicz. The two women co-directed MS Slavic 7 (2019), and in addition to her role in Matt and Mara, Campbell plays the lead in Bohdanowicz’s newest film, Measures of a Funeral (2024).
Radwanski’s films have often tended to zero in on the fraught interior worlds of a single protagonist. This makes Matt and Mara something of a departure, since the heart of the movie lay in the subjective push and pull between the two protagonists, and between Campbell and Johnson as performers. This was largely made possible by Radwanski’s expansive, rigorous approach to visual and sonic construction, a mode that could be called “realism” but that often achieves a formal stylization that complicates any ordinary use of that term.
Kazik and I spoke on September 2nd, just prior to Matt and Mara‘s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Michael Sicinski: It seems that Matt and Mara represents a bit of a departure in your work. Were you trying to stake out something a little bit different? Or do you actually see more continuity there?
Kazik Radwanski: I think all my work reacts to the previous work, and I think there have been departures in different ways. Even going back to my early shorts, I would jump from different ages. The first short [Assault (2007)] was about a young offender, and the next short [Princess Margaret Blvd. (2008)] was about an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s. So I think I’ve always had this instinct of keeping some things the same and then throwing a wrench into the process in different ways.
I think that was partially what happened on the new film. I think there were aspects of the process that were different that didn’t quite resonate on the screen. But maybe a simple way to say this is, the previous three features are all very character-centered, and at least initially on this one there were two protagonists. I think through the editing process it maybe defaulted back to a single protagonist, through Mara’s POV and Matt becoming more of a secondary character. But there is a three-hour cut of the film where there are a lot more scenes with Matt.
But I think it’s true that with my filmmaking style, I’ll try things, and then will often recognize things about my process, my instincts, and return to that a bit. As we were cutting it, playing with the footage, I fully recognize that it’s working better in this way, and my main impulse as a director is often to focus on just one person. But lots of other things too, and one of the major inspirations on this film was a type of emotional affair, this kind of predicament where you’d find yourself in murky territory. And I think that led to the decision to smooth out the handheld camerawork. We experimented a lot with different gimbals and rigs to try to smooth things out. That was quite a conscious effort.
There was a feeling I wanted of conversation, [for viewers] to be pulled into conversations and then interrupted. I realized that my usual, extreme style would be a little too alienating for pulling viewers into the headspace between the two characters. So there was a conscious change in the overall feeling of Matt and Mara, but there was also something I was chasing. I wanted something that was a bit elusive, a bit calmer, to be a pole for this “pocket” in the afternoon — that she’d find herself hanging out with someone, and then realize that maybe something’s missing from her life, or a side of her personality.
But I would say there’s always a bit of an instinct whenever I make a film to both interrupt what I’ve done previously, to somehow refresh things, to stay excited about how I shoot things. But there’s still no music in this film. It’s still very naturalistic, very on-location, in places that are in my life and that are filled with people from my life. There’re still a lot of things that are very much the same. So it’s maybe a way of interrupting the things I like.
Credit: The Cinema Guild
MS: I went back and looked at Anne at 13,000 ft., and even though it’s completely identified with Anne’s (Campbell) point of view, Matt (Johnson) really bursts into that film with a different energy, a different rhythm, and of course his character eventually goes away. But it seems maybe you identified certain potentials in that pairing of Matt and Deragh, leading the new film to be a bit more of a two-hander?
KR: Yeah, in terms of concrete inspirations for this film, it was working with the two of them on Anne at 13,000 ft. and feeling like there’s more to explore here. I love the combination of the two of them. And in a lot of ways it’s such an unlikely combination. In a lot of ways they’re opposites, and so Deragh is the perfect foil for Matt. Deragh’s instincts as an actor and an artist are extremely precise. And it’s also Matt respecting that. We’re friends in real life, so when we made Anna at 13,000 ft., we weren’t sure what this would be like, putting them on screen together. It really was an experiment.
So in that film, Matt’s role was originally much smaller, but it grew. There is this incredible rapport between the two. They’re so often at odds, but there is this deep trust between those two. And even just making films as friends, things have to click in just the right way, and fortunately it does with those two. And then on top of that, I think the three of us are all interested in documentary-like tensions. And they all have a bit of experience directing that way. Deragh’s co-directed films with Sofia [Bohdanowicz]. And so we are always trying to nurture that on-set, trying to find ways of getting to these moments we all have a similar fascination with. But what’s great is I think we all arrive at them in different ways.
So there’s a few meta-levels in [Matt and Mara], like with Matt using his own name. But I think sometimes, when the two characters are arguing in the scene, I think you see that as actors they’re navigating the scene differently. And so there are slight tensions even outside the scenes. Both Deragh and Matt have a lot of integrity, but I think it manifests in different ways. Even a scene feeling good, they can both be very critical, but they arrive at it, just from different places. So sometimes it would be incredible, and sometimes it would be a disaster. They’d be too far apart, and we’d have to move to another scene. But I think learning that dance between the two of them was a big part of it.
MS: Right, and I don’t know how this would read to a viewer who came to your work through Matt and Mara, but seeing your other films, and seeing other films that Matt and Deragh are in, it seems like the tension between their different acting styles ends up reflected in the narrative as well. The character of Matt has this brash energy; he can come in and command a space. Whereas Mara has things she’s trying to protect. And that’s something I’ve always noticed about Deragh’s acting, that it seems very internalized, very controlled. But maybe you had a different experience of that.
KR: Yeah, she can do a lot of different things, and I think maybe there’s a style of acting in my films that we connect on. It’s maybe a little different in Sofia’s films, or in Lucy Kerr’s film Family Portrait [2023]. She works with a lot of interesting directors, all the way back to Matt Porterfield [2013’s I Used to Be Darker].
But yes, there are those parallels with their fictional characters. I’ve been doing some interviews with Matt, and the way he rants in the classroom about how young people should write. He’ll start doing that in an interview, and so there are those similarities. And Deragh too. She’s so smart. Matt’s personality is very on the surface, whereas Deragh builds worlds, and carries a lot with her in these performances. And Matt really likes to smash things around. Matt comes from Second City improv. He had his own TV show [Nirvanna the Band the Show]. He’s capable of growing comedy bigger and bigger, and what’s amazing about Deragh is she knows when not to speak. And that’s so important, knowing when not to respond, which can really ground a scene. Like that scene on the subway, and she starts analyzing Matt. “Why are you doing this? What’s behind this?” Her instinct is to really unpack or dissect something.
What’s great is that when we do a Q&A together, it almost feels like another scene from the movie. They both have quite different interpretations of the film, of what could have happened, and what it meant to the characters. So as much as we are friends, and talk through ideas together, I do rely on that distance between the two of them. When we’re tracing out a scene, going over the dynamics, I make it a point to talk to them separately about where their characters are at. I want to avoid them totally understanding the other person’s motivations.
MS: You said you made a choice to partly move away from the handheld direction style, so closely aligned with the protagonist. At moments, while watching Matt and Mara, I thought I detected that Rohmer was on your mind. I thought I saw a direct visual quotation from Love in the Afternoon [1972].
KR: When Mara pulls up the sweater.
MS: Yes. So what drew you to Rohmer at this point?
KR: I think it really resonated with me, that moment in the afternoon, that in-between space, that pocket away from home, away from the relationship. It really spoke to me, that there could be this way of reflecting, of maybe realizing that something is missing at home. And that’s just my interpretation of it, but I think that was the spark. And also, Deragh and I watch a lot of movies together, and it became a talking point, Rohmer. And there was also Hong Sang-soo. I think at one point during the pandemic, Deragh and I watched every Hong film, or at least the ones that we’d missed. It became a passive conversation.
So there’s that sweater moment, which was something I wanted to do just to “tack” the inspiration, or pay it concrete homage. But there’s even another scene, where they’re at the dinner table, Mara and the musicians. That was partially inspired by a scene in The Green Ray [1986], where a character is a vegetarian and everyone is like, “you need protein,” “you need this,” “you need that.” So I tried to create that atmosphere at the table. So there are small homages like that. But yeah, I also like the aspiration of making a film with my friends, in my city, that had those touchstones.
And of course Matt and Mara was inspired by a lot of other films too. Brief Encounter [1945] is one I mentioned to Matt. It hooked him. He was like, “I get it now” when I mentioned the David Lean film. Minnie and Moskowitz [John Cassavetes (1971)] is another one. Just a lot of small inspirations. For me, I think it’s those two personas of Matt and Deragh, and there is something fun thinking about other films with similar dynamics.
As a Toronto filmmaker, it was a nice feeling making other films like them, exploring these kids of relationships in Toronto. And with these small inspirations we were trying to take these small moments and make them feel cinematic. There was a period of time where I was afraid that people not from Toronto, not from this community, wouldn’t care about this film. That it would be too small. But at the same time, that’s a feeling I love. It’s a film that could resonate with some people, while other people would discard it.
We discovered the ending when we were shooting, that scene at the tailor/dry cleaners, where they put “Matt and Mara” down on the piece of paper. I just love the idea that that’s something you could throw away, or something you could hold onto. I love that tension in all my movies, where a character is going through a crisis or a tough moment, that for them is probably a great drama, but at the same time could be nothing. And people could watch it and think, “why’d you make a film about that?” I think that’s partially my interest as a filmmaker, trying to find those moments.
Credit: The Cinema Guild
MS: You mentioned Matt and Mara as a Toronto film, thinking of yourself as a Toronto filmmaker. In the last 10 or 15 years, there’s been a lot of activity there: Sofia, Antoine Bourges, Lev Lewis, and Calvin Thomas. So as part of a community, what does it mean to you be a Toronto filmmaker, or a Canadian filmmaker? Do you feel like you’re making “Canadian films” in some way, or is that immaterial?
KR: It’s interesting, that question of what Canadian identity is, or even a Toronto identity. I mean Toronto, it’s the biggest city, but it also represents an extreme of Canada. Half the city is foreign-born. Like my parents are from another country. So there’s a lack of history in some way, or a lack of place. It feels a placeless city. When I made my first feature — and maybe even this film too, in a way — I like that challenge. How can we make this cinematic? How can we make this interesting? How do you make a film about a placeless city?
At the same time, when I watch films from other parts of the world, I like it when they’re really specific. When maybe it’s a nowhere place and they can somehow find the absurdity, the specificity in that. So I certainly feel excited when I see other Torontonians do that — Sofia, or Matt Johnson. And then I feel that Toronto is maybe the extreme of it. I certainly feel inspired in that way when I see an Ashley McKenzie film, or Graham Foy with The Maiden [2022], which was Calgary. And I think Calgary’s kind of on par with Toronto as being “placeless” in that way.
MS: Or Vancouver, which is always representing other places, seldom appearing as itself.
KR: Yeah, totally. I think that English Canada has had this challenge for a while, as opposed to Quebec. When I was making Tower [2012], a big inspiration for me was Denis Côté. But at the same time, Quebec has generations of filmmakers. Also, the big difference is that they have a culture that they’re proud of, and protective of, and I don’t know that that’s true of English-speaking Canada. Or at least we don’t have the incubator of that built-in audience. Or that history.
But there is a history of English Canadian cinema too, and I think you see that history reflected in Matt’s films, and I think you could say the same about Sofia, Graham, and Ashley. There’s an interest in documentary. There was a gap of about 20 years where that was less of a focal point. But I think that is a very Canadian perspective. I think that’s the Canadian legacy, up into the ’70s, at least, with the NFB. I really noticed that, too, when I went to Poland last month for a festival. I noticed that they have a very similar origin, with state-sponsored documentaries trying to define their nation, and then transcending into director-driven cinema. Made me think a lot about Canada, with stuff like Goin’ Down the Road [Donald Shebib (1970)] or… you mentioned Vancouver, there was Canadian International Pictures doing those Larry Kent films.
And especially Matt’s work, which has affinities to Nobody Waved Goodbye [Don Owen (1964)], like where you’re almost pretending to make a documentary and then make a fiction film. So, like I say, when you look at the identity of Canadian film, there really is some shared DNA. It doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch to group us together. There are a lot of very similar impulses.
I think the big thing, too, is that with the three of us — Matt, Deragh, and I — there’s something that’s a little political in terms of how the films are made. Deragh has really stuck her neck out in terms of actors’ rights and actors’ unions. Both Matt and Deragh are officially non-actors. There are a lot of parallels with SAG/AFTRA, but there’s a very specific process in Canada where there’s a lot of red tape if you want to combine actors with non-actors on location. There are a lot of rules, which are mainly rules for television. But they can really get in the way of making films like Matt and Mara.
Maybe that’s partially why, with the rise of digital in 2012, a lot of us were fed up with there being so much funding and it’s somehow being misdirected, or just getting caught up a complicated, subsidized system. As great as it is to have those opportunities, it can get in the way of an actor-driven process or a director-driven process. I want to focus on the scenes, rather than this big production machinery, this bureaucracy, and the kind of gatekeeping politics you get from higher-ups. There had been a lot of stagnation in Canadian cinema, and I think a lot of us got excited that we could make something small, something personal, and that it would start playing in festivals.
Seeing Sofia’s work or Ashley’s work playing festivals, it’s such a huge inspiration. It makes you want to take a bigger swing, to try something different in the next film. So we’re inspired by the last 10 years. It was a very lonely place when I made my first feature. It’s gratifying that now there’s a support system. Nikolai Michaylov, who shot my film, also shot Sofia’s Measures for a Funeral, which is also playing at TIFF. It’s like an ecosystem being created of people making interesting work.
MS: Trying to sidestep that institutional apparatus, forming a community, it reminds me a bit of Berlin School filmmaking. In German filmmaking, they have different kinds of bureaucratic problems. But seeing someone like Christian Petzold, who’s interest in taking these dead zones between the old East and West Germany, it’s a similar question of how to depict a non-space and locate its spatial identity.
KR: Yeah, I love all those filmmakers. I don’t know enough about Germany to know what was just before it, what they were rebelling against. Whereas in Canada… it was these bloated $20 million, $50 million films that just went nowhere. But yes, we were talking about Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo, but certainly Schanelec and Petzold and Maren Ade — those were filmmakers we talked a lot about too.
Credit: The Cinema Guild
MS: Your first couple of features, the lead performers were non-professional actors?
KR: Yes.
MS: So did that create problems in terms of getting the films made and out there?
KR: In terms of financing? Well, my early stuff is super low budget. We’re fortunate that in Canada there’s the Arts Council system. And I kind if built my way up through the Arts Councils. Tower was a budget of $50,000, but it was grants, not my life savings. And then How Heavy This Hammer [2015] was about $100,000, $125,000. At the time the Arts Council grants were more intended for short films, and it was kind of radical to try to make a feature with that budget. But they were totally in favor of casting non-professionals. The Arts Council’s intent is that the money goes directly to the filmmaker and the artists.
Matt and Mara was our first doing full Telefilm Canada. Anne was kind of a hybrid of the two sources. We got a lot of finishing funds from Telefilm. But it was no problem working with non-actors. I’d made several shorts that way too, so that was really the secret to how I could make movies with that small amount of money. In a way it was more like a documentary. These non-actors were so committed that we could shoot forever, like a documentary, and just sort of follow them, and really tailor the films to them. And that’s something I was really excited about when I was making the first two features.
Especially Tower. I mean, I was still quite young. I wrote that when I was 24. I had all these angsty ideas, and I think I was self-aware enough to know that I didn’t have enough life experience. But what I loved doing was filtering those ideas through a non-actor, or through a fictional persona, and challenging the dialogue by filtering it through someone else’s voice. With those films, the most common question I get when I do a Q&A is about improvisation. I’m so worried that people think the films are free and fast and on-the-fly. But especially with those early films, it’s very long drawn-out, and whittling away, shooting again and again, learning about someone, learning when they’re interesting. Learning how to shoot them. So it’s really about patience. The first two features each took about a year. So I was grateful to have that arts funding so we could support our idiosyncratic way of working.
MS: Speaking of, it seems that most of your films have focused quite closely on human labor, showing people at work. One of the things I noticed about Matt and Mara is that you have a polarity between Matt as the up-and-coming writer who has success, who is free to move around, versus Mara who is a creative but she’s also a working academic. What made you interested in examining artistic labor, as opposed to manual labor like we see in Scaffold [2017]?
KR: I don’t think I came at it directly. The simplest way to say it is, this is the work I’ve done in my life. When I was younger, I worked in the family construction business. And currently I work as a professor. Similarly, in Anne at 13,000 ft., my mom, who’s in the movie, worked at a daycare for 40 years. So I do gravitate to those things from my life. But because of that, they represent a lot of things to me. You have these societal constructs, but also with the person there’s these relationships and a lot of ego that come out of it as well. And you can see it in all the films. Anne working at a daycare in that film, you see these higher stakes, relationships with parents for example.
More specifically with Matt and Mara, I think the construct of the university is very important. And what comes to mind first, which isn’t on screen, is the characters’ shared history. They were both students at this university. I teach at a film school, so I’m constantly around young filmmakers, or people who are aspiring, or wondering “am I a filmmaker?” That’s still fresh in my mind from how I used to think about it. I found that interesting, as two people seek each other out again, after all that time has passed. It’s a small part of the film, but you also have Mara’s office hour meetings. That was really important to me to show those just how loaded reading a poem can be. Trying to find your voice.
Then there’s Matt coming into the class, or Samir and the musicians. In part, it’s just how we organize ourselves in society. But there’s also that in-between space, like office hours, or gap times between courses, or just finding yourself downtown. Those small, interstitial spaces offer opportunities.
