Oldenburg: Cassian Elwes on His Directorial Debut ‘Passenger C’

The plot line for Passenger C reads like an “solely in Hollywood” inspirational story. Massive-time Hollywood agent and producer Cassian is on a red-eye flight again to Los Angeles when he agrees to take the seat subsequent to Marco, an ex-Marine with PTSD. When Marco begins to flip out, bodily assaulting Cassian and threatening the opposite passengers, Cassian tries to calm him down. After touchdown, when Marco is handed over to the police, Cassian guarantees he “gained’t neglect him.”

He by no means did. Cassian is the producer and big-time Hollywood agent Cassian Elwes, and the incident on the red-eye, greater than a decade in the past, modified his life. It altered the course of Elwes’ profession, spurned him to again a undertaking no one in Hollywood believed in — just a little Oscar winner referred to as Dallas Consumers Membership — and to arrange applications just like the Horizon program to assist feminine filmmakers and, most significantly, to face up for Marco at his legal trial, the place he confronted a 20-year jail sentence.

For his directorial debut, Elwes retells the story of Passenger C in a sparse, black-and-white movie that bares little resemblance to his earlier work as a producer — Elwes’ lengthy listing of credit embody Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Dee Rees’ Mudbound and Liza Johnson’s Elvis & Nixon. Nevertheless it matches properly into the indie aesthetic of the Oldenburg Movie Pageant, the place Passenger C is having its worldwide premiere.

Elwes teamed up with long-time buddy, German actress and producer Veronica Ferres, on Passenger C, and the pair spoke with The Hollywood Reporter forward of the movie’s Oldenburg premiere on Saturday.

Earlier than speaking in regards to the movie, can I ask how the 2 of you met and got here to work collectively on this film?

Elwes: It was years in the past. I used to be an agent for a few years for William Morris, and I went to the Berlin Movie Pageant. We had a consumer there, Sharon Stone. And Sharon Stone requested me to go to a celebration along with her. She noticed Veronica and stated to me: “You’ve bought to return and meet her. She’s the Sharon Stone of Germany.” We instantly hit it off, and we’ve been buddies ever since. That was, I don’t know, 20 years in the past, or one thing like that. We’ve labored on numerous motion pictures collectively, motion pictures that she’s been in, and we’ve stayed buddies. I satisfied her to return to America and get an agent right here and he or she’s been extremely profitable. So after I first began occupied with this film, I instantly requested her if she would produce it with me.

Passenger C is centered on an encounter you had on a flight. What affect did the incident have in your life that you simply felt compelled to inform the story as your directorial debut?

Elwes: The occasion occurred to me 10 years in the past, however I’d been occupied with this movie for fairly a while. I spotted I used to be having horrible PTSD myself over it, that issues had been occurring to me psychologically that I wasn’t in a position to management and so they had been affecting my life, my private life, my work and plenty of totally different points. All that began popping out whereas doing remedy. The incident itself occurred after I was in New Orleans. We had been in the midst of capturing The Butler and having plenty of points in making that movie. We had performed an evening shoot and it was Saturday morning, about 10 o’clock within the morning, the place I’d simply gone to sleep about two or three hours earlier than when my daughter referred to as me and stated: “I do know you’re going again to Los Angeles tomorrow however is there any manner you’ll be able to come to New York first and spend the weekend with me as a result of I’m shifting into a brand new condo and I must go upstate and get all my stuff out of storage.” So I stated after all and altered every thing and flew to New York and took the final flight out of New York Metropolis on Sunday evening, which was this JetBlue flight out of JFK. I’d by no means been on JetBlue earlier than. After all, individuals joke with me now that that is what occurs while you fly on JetBlue.

However, really, the incident turned out to be extremely essential in my life; it triggered one thing very cathartic for me. I began to actually take into consideration my life and that, if I might have an effect on one man’s life (Marco’s) might I have an effect on different individuals’s lives? Initially, I had the glib concept of perhaps going to work for Habitat for Humanity or one thing, however I had lunch sooner or later with [Black List founder] Franklin Leonard, and he stated: “You’ve this unbelievable information of the movie trade. What you actually ought to do is assist mentor individuals, assist younger individuals in a extra significant manner in your small business.” And that’s how these applications began, like Horizon, to assist feminine administrators. And It’s actually taken off. We’ve performed it for 10 years now, the place we carry younger feminine administrators out of faculties and movie colleges throughout the nation and produce them to Sundance for mentorships. Within the final 4 years, I’ve made perhaps 10, 12 motion pictures and no less than seven of them had been with feminine administrators, most of these first-timers. I’m making an attempt very laborious not simply to speak the speak however to stroll the stroll. And all of it got here from that incident on the JetBlue flight.

When Marco stated “You’re going to neglect me“?

Elwes: And I stated, “No, I’m not. I gained’t.” However I did. I began engaged on Dallas Consumers Membership, after which I moved to the following film and the following. And I misplaced contact with him. However as a result of I had despatched all these tweets out about what occurred that evening — I wrote them within the cab journey on the best way dwelling, when it was all nonetheless recent in my reminiscence — and that had gone utterly viral, one thing like 500,000 individuals learn it or one thing, somebody tweeted at me three months later and stated: “What occurred to Marco?” And I believed, “Oh my God, the place is he? What’s occurred to him?” I’m even choking up now, speaking about it, however I tracked him down. He was within the most safety in Denver. I went down there to fulfill with him, and I went to his trial to help him. I wrote [the judge], asking for leniency. And, proper on the spur, he determined, to vary the sentence. As an alternative of giving Marco 5 years of jail, he gave him three years of probation. I wrote to the man; I made the hassle, and it really modified one thing. That’s what motivated me afterward. I used to be like, you won’t have the ability to change the entire world however you’ll be able to change one little factor at a time.

Ferres: When Cassian got here to me he stated, “I’ve had this expertise, and I actually must make this film about it; perhaps it might change individuals’s lives.” I instantly stated I’ve to supply this movie. Firstly, as a result of I’m simply very proud to know this genius who’s a lot extra than simply an agent or a producer; he can actually encourage filmmakers, administrators, writers, actors and put them collectively in a manner that’s the finest to make an important movie. When he stated he needed to direct, I advised him I needed to be the producer of Cassian Elwes’ first characteristic.

Elwes: And Veronica, God bless her, she’s been an angel in my life. She gave me plenty of notes on the shoot and in post-production, within the enhancing room and he or she’s continued to assist me, by means of getting this movie to the Oldenburg Movie Pageant. She’s been the sort of producer to me that I attempt to be to different filmmakers.

What had been the largest challenges in telling this story?

Elwes: Effectively this isn’t a classical three-act story. It required a really distinctive type of storytelling that mirrored what was occurring in actual time. And I needed to incorporate issues, just like the daughter-father story, that had been crucial to my emotional arc. I’m going to get very private right here. My daughter bought married, about 5 years in the past and I gave a speech on the wedding ceremony in entrance of perhaps 200 individuals. And I began telling this story. I used to be saying, “This factor occurred to me, and I might have died, and if I had, I wouldn’t be right here right now.” Afterwards, I used to be so mortified that I stated that, in entrance of all these individuals. That was what began me occupied with what had occurred and after I began to go to remedy about it.

I wrote the script over a three-year interval after I had damaged up with my second spouse and I used to be residing alone. I used to be sitting at my eating room desk up at my little home, which is depicted within the film, and I used to be scripting this script out in longhand. It was at first simply flashes of moments that will come to me in the midst of the evening and I’d write down. It wasn’t actually a script. When Veronica checked out it, it was only a collection of ideas and notes. She actually helped me flip it right into a film.

What stunned me is how the movie shifts from the incident on the flight, which performs nearly like a real-time thriller, to the interval afterward, which exhibits the behind-the-scenes enterprise of Hollywood as you attempt to put collectively financing for Dallas Consumers Membership.

Elwes: After I began writing, the precise dialog that I had with Marco on the aircraft, which was nonetheless very vivid in my thoughts, was the very first thing I wrote. And as soon as I’d written that was like, properly, that’s 25 pages, that’s not a film. After which I began occupied with how Dallas Consumers Membership occurred to me, the chance to become involved in it, occurred proper after that. It didn’t really occur the following morning, like within the movie, that’s a little bit of little bit of poetic liberty, however I bought again on Sunday evening, and I bought the telephone name on Dallas Consumers Membership on Tuesday. I believed I’d throw that in as a result of it could be attention-grabbing for individuals to see what my life is admittedly like.

It’s a a lot smaller, lower-budget movie that you’re used to creating as a producer.

Elwes: This was a COVID film, we shot the entire film in eight days, largely at my home, at my workplace, on the Starbucks on Sundown the place I’m going as an everyday. I didn’t have a allow. I simply went on the market with a digicam and the actors and stated, “Let’s do the scene.” There have been individuals going out and in, getting espresso and the individuals behind the counter had been like: “It’s OK, it’s simply Cassian making an attempt to make a film.”

Was it odd seeing your individual story play out on display screen, with an actor (Jon Jacobs) taking part in you?

Elwes: Effectively, unusually sufficient, again earlier than I grew to become an agent, I produced exploitation horror motion pictures, I did 4 of them, even directed one, however I don’t depend that. Passenger C is my actual directorial debut. However one of many 4 movies was referred to as The Lady With Hungry Eyes. And it was directed by and starred this younger British actor-director referred to as Jon Jacobs. I after I began occupied with Passenger C I considered Jon, as a result of he sort of seems like me, and since he’s a director too, he might really assist me with the efficiency stuff, about the place to place the digicam and so forth. Jon continued to make low-budget motion pictures and produce low-budget motion pictures and his companion, Michael Kastenbaum, is a wonderful low-budget line producer. So I mainly recruited them collectively to return and assist me do a funds for the movie. And getting Jon to play me actually helped with getting the factor made.

What was that have like, going again to the roots like that?

Elwes: It was ultra-low funds, capturing shortly, and I’ve to inform you: It was a lot enjoyable. It was like my first expertise, making my first motion pictures, after I was 23, making very low-budget motion pictures for $200,000, $300,000. And after I look again on it, regardless that the movies themselves weren’t, you recognize, superb, they had been made for the correct causes, which was for all of us to discover ways to make movies. It was a lot enjoyable making these movies. My spouse lately stated to me, “The model of you making this film [Passenger C] was the primary time I noticed you utterly let go and have the best time being an artist and never take into consideration the enterprise.” The model of me that made this film was the best model of me. I cherished it.

Are you able to speak a bit in regards to the Horizon program, which you began partly due to this incident?

Elwes: The large change got here after I wrote that letter to the choose. Since you at all times suppose: “It is a large drawback, I can’t do something about it.” However you don’t have to resolve the large drawback, you’ll be able to resolve one little drawback. Or you’ll be able to attempt to assist with one little drawback. And perhaps that may make a distinction. I didn’t suppose the Horizon program for younger feminine administrators would imply this nice change in our enterprise. However I believed perhaps I might present by instance, that if one individual tries to do one thing, others might comply with. Now you see plenty of applications like this on the market and I’m completely satisfied about that. We had been the primary.

How do you’re feeling about premiering the movie in Oldenburg?

Ferres: Oldenburg is a competition I’ve a historical past with. And it fits this movie, as a result of one of many principal themes is about legal justice reform, and Oldenburg is thought for its jail screenings. It’s near one of many greatest European prisons, essentially the most trendy prisons for male criminals. When my movie [2013’s Gefährliches Schweigen] premiered there, there was a serial killer sitting on one facet of me and a rapist on the opposite. And I used to be speaking to them about my film, what it did to them, and in addition about their lives, the occasions of their lives that led them to this place. It was an incredible honor simply to be there, to have the ability to have that have.

Interview has been edited and condensed for readability.