Directed by Keir Siewert
Produced by Alix Austin
Written by Keir Siewert & Anonymous
Based on real accounts, a model takes matters into her own hands to expose a serial predator in the photography world.
Rhetta, an industrious model, sets up a shoot with a predatory photographer, notorious for his coercion tactics and aggressive behaviour. However, little does he realise that Rhetta has orchestrated this meeting as a sting, to expose his inappropriate behaviour on an online video live stream.
Portrait is a film built on research from interviews with 21 models about their experiences in the photography world, including real stories.
ABOUT THE FILM
Not only was PORTRAIT a big hit at our 2022 film festival taking home the awards for Best Director, Best Drama, and Best Editing, it was also selected for the BAFTA qualifying Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, Beeston Film Festival, and the Independent Film Awards London. It’s been release online via Klipist.
ABOUT THE FILMmakerS
Co-directing Team Alix Austin & Keir Siewert: A/K (Kill Your Lover, currently in post-production)
Alix & Keir met 10 years ago on a music video shoot and have been making films together ever since.
They were selected to be part of FrightFest and Queensbury Picture's NEW BLOOD '22 initiative. The team are also the recipient of the Raimi Productions Scholarship as featured in FANGORIA.
Notable work includes co-directing the London segment for Horror Anthology 'ISOLATION', alongside Larry Fessenden, Bobby Roe and Dennie Gordon, which premiered at Frightfest and Screamfest 2021 and featured in Variety, Bloody Disgusting and more.
Their multiple award-winning short film roster has screened at over 100 festivals globally:
RETCH (2018): Available on ALTER & Bloody Disgusting TV
PORTRAIT (2020): Available to stream on Klipist
SUCKER (2022): Premiering online in Summer 2023
Their first feature film, toxic relationship body horror, KILL YOUR LOVER is currently in post-production, working closely with Executive Producer Douglas Cox (Host).
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH ALIX & KEIR
Welcome back to our Short of the Week series. What have you been up to since we last interviewed you with True Value last August? How is post-production going for your feature, Kill Your Lover?
Hi there! Alix and Keir here - very excited to be back with Kino’s Short of the Week showcase. AA is Alix and KS is Keir, so that way you’ll know who’s answering the question!
For those who don’t know our work, we’ve been making films together for the last 10 years and recently officially joined forces as a co-directing team (A/K for short) on our first feature film KILL YOUR LOVER! In the case of PORTRAIT, Keir directed and wrote, while Alix produced.
What we’ve been up to since True Value premiered on Short of the week last Fall:
We shot the second block on our feature KILL YOUR LOVER in November, which was a wild ride! Now we’re in post and because the film is very music driven, we’ve been working closely with our Composer and good friend Thibault Chavanis.
Apart from that we’re definitely in more of a business driven phase, looking ahead to the future. It’s difficult to say no to new projects for fun rather than money, for instance, but we owe it to the feature and everyone’s hard work to put our all into finishing it well.
Tell us about the genesis of Portrait and how the project came about?
KS: Portrait initially came from an entirely innocent conversation. I was doing a photoshoot, chatting casually to the model and I asked her “what’s the weirdest shoot you ever had?”What she told me shocked me so much and it has stuck with me ever since.
She told me a photographer had once taken a break during a shoot to pleasure himself in the bathroom with the pictures he had just taken of her. It was a story I couldn’t get out of my head and ultimately became the catalyst for Portrait.
Your portfolio is heavily filled with horror films, so Portrait is quite a departure for you. Can you discuss how your horror background affected the way you approached a drama about a real life horrific encounter?
AA: A little known fact about us is that we’ve made a lot of non-horror films including and especially comedies. We just don’t promote them as much anymore because we’re not pulling in that direction anymore. That and it doesn’t support our feature film Slate.
When it comes to PORTRAIT, I think Keir will join me in saying that this film came about because it was a story that demanded to be made. We knew we had to make it.
RETCH (2018) was our first horror and PORTRAIT was made a year later. All our other, more strictly Horror genre work (Isolation, Do Not Resuscitate, Sucker) came after making PORTRAIT (2019).
KS: I think a lot of the skills that you learn through horror; like creating tension, working with intense emotion and understanding tone are translatable into most other genres. Our goal with PORTRAIT was to create a subjective experience and our horror work was a really good base to lead with the emotional content of the film rather than a more withdrawn perspective.
A lot of shorts thrive by embracing a minimalist master shot style, however, Portrait has SO much coverage which really helps amp the suspense. Can you talk about your process shotlisting and planning your shoots to ensure you walk away with such great coverage and still make it work on a micro-budget?
KS: We always try to lead with the idea that a scene has a design to it and that a sequence has a purpose. The goal isn’t really to cover the scene, it’s to tell the story of it, so we approach each scene individually.
So while there was a shotlist of the conversation in the first half of PORTRAIT, the second scene (the photo shoot) was more about blocking out the scene and then having a loose camera that can adjust and move within the space.
We knew there would be certain moments we wanted to highlight for the edit (like his hands touching her). So we grabbed that in slow motion as a distinct cutaway shot. But ultimately the first scene has a deliberate design, whereas the second we knew would be created through the edit.
Our general approach is to make sure to adapt to whatever will serve the narrative of the scene best, rather than just going for safety.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making of Portrait and how did you overcome them?
KS: The content was definitely uncomfortable for some people, especially reading it in a written form. The stylistic approach of combining black and white and colour I think also alienated people. I think when looking for funding or support often these sorts of subject matters are more appealing if they can be wrapped up in a nice glossy moral lesson.
Portrait has had some good festival success - not just being selected for the BAFTA qualifying Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, but also several awards from Beeston, Independent Film Awards London, Swindon, Unrestricted View, and Southport. Any tips for filmmakers currently trying to navigate the festival circuit? Any festivals where you had a great experience and would recommend?
AA: My main recommendation would be to be really clear on what you think your film is and be targeted in your festival submissions. Go for a range of festivals, not just BAFTA or Oscar-qualifying festivals (so-called ‘mid tier’ festivals are way nicer anyway!).
The above obviously depends on how far along in your filmmaking journey you are, but it’s a good approach for everyone, unless you have the right funding bodies/connections attached to your project to get you through the door more easily with the so-called ‘prestige’ festivals.
Some great practical advice I got from a course recently and I wish I’d known sooner - set your own Finish Line by answering the 3 WHYs:
Ask yourself 3 Questions:
- WHY: Why filmmaking?
- WHY: Why this film?
- WHY: Why festivals?
(What are you looking to achieve by attending the festivals with a film? Are you looking for a team for your next project? Are you using it to show you have a proof of concept for a feature and are looking for investors? Could you achieve your goals by attending the festival rather than submitting a film?)
If you have a clear goal in mind it’ll deter you from scattergun submitting your film endlessly and most likely making yourself miserable (and poorer) in the process.
Measure your success, and don’t treat film submissions like a lottery ticket: It should ideally be the beginning of a partnership with the festival.
I would definitely shout out SHIFT Festival (Netherlands) and Beeston for great people and vibes. And I would be remiss not to mention KINO itself, because we felt incredibly supported throughout our journey and that they really GOT the film, for which we’ll always be grateful.
Latest film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
We recently rewatched Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS, truly one of the great British films that has never gotten the wide attention and acclaim it deserves. Togo on Disney+ for wholesome, good vibes and Willem Dafoe being a dogsledding boss.