"Withholding Information Makes You More Engaged": Elena Oxman on "Outerlands"

"After a run-in with a new coworker at the laundromat, Cass (Asia Kate Dillon) has a drunken hookup with Kalli (Louisa Krause). Kalli seems to take an immediate trusting to Cass, and after Cass tells her their side-gig is nannying, Kalli asks if they can watch her daughter Ari (Ridley Asha Bateman) while she goes out of town for work."

"As Kalli's radio silence goes from being a fluke to a genuine concern, Cass gets worried, then they realize Ari hasn't either. Where Kalli has gone or what she's doing, director Elena Oxman withholds through her rigorous focus on the narrative through Cass's first-person perspective. But Oxman also holds Cass's background at arm's length from the audience, ramping up the tension for both audience and character by keeping Cass running."

"Outerlands is Oxman's first fiction feature, but hardly her first film. She's been working professionally for almost 25 years, making collaborative documentaries with fellow Yale-graduate Elihu Rubin in and around her alma mater's hometown. From New Haven she would go on to get a PhD in film theory from UNC-Chapel Hill, writing a dissertation on André Bazin, Roland Barthes and Gilles Deleuze. Oxman would go from there to San Francisco, where she would teach film but also start developing what would become Outerlands."

Cass, a gender-nonconforming caregiver who works nights in a restaurant and watches wealthy children by day, has a drunken hookup with Kalli and agrees to watch Kalli's daughter, Ari, while Kalli leaves town. Cass's unstable personal life and sparse apartment—stocked only with beer—contrast with Ari's need for a reliable guardian. Kalli's unexplained radio silence escalates worry, and Cass discovers Ari has not heard from Kalli either. Director Elena Oxman tells the story tightly through Cass's first-person perspective and withholds Cass's background, intensifying tension. Oxman has a long documentary background, a PhD in film theory, and developed Outerlands in San Francisco.

Read at Filmmaker Magazine