At this year’sFantastic Festin Austin, Texas, Collider’sPerri Nemiroffmet the trio behindGazer, a driving neo-noir that was the very definition of a team effort. Co-writer, director, and producerRyan J. Sloan, co-writer, star, and producerAriella Mastroianni, and cinematographerMatheus Bastosstopped by to chat about the journey from their two-year shoot to the World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival to sharing their film with the Fantastic Fest crowd.
Gazerfollows Frankie Rhodes (Mastroianni), a woman with a rare condition that complicates her perception of time. Prone to blackouts, this single mother religiously records her life on cassette tapes to fill in the blanks. In a custody battle for her daughter, Frankie is desperate for income and accepts a mysterious job from a woman who drags her into a frightening nightmare.
While talking with Nemiroff, Sloan, Mastroianni, and Bastos share how they met as first-time filmmakers, their passion and drive to bring this ambitious vision to the screen in 16mm, and just barely gettingGazersubmitted for the Cannes Film Festival, where it was accepted for the Directors' Fortnight program. Check out the full conversation in the video above or read the interview transcript below for the films that influence them, finding their way into this story, and more.
The Team Behind ‘Gazer’ Gravitated Towards Each Other
PERRI NEMIROFF: I am thrilled to be sitting with the team ofGazerfor a multitude of reasons that we are going to get to, but I will start by saying huge congratulations on your movie. Every single movie made is an enormous feat, but there are certain things about your production that take that to the next level, so you should be very, very proud of what you’ve done.
ARIELLA MASTROIANNI: Thank you.
Clearly, I know whatGazeris, but because it’s on the festival circuit, our audience will likely first learn about it through Fantastic Fest, so I will give one of you these duties. Ryan and Ariella, who wants to give a brief synopsis of the film?
RYAN J. SLOAN:Gazerfollows a young mother with a rare brain condition, and she’s desperate for money. She takes a job from a mysterious woman and suffers the consequences.
Before we even start digging into story details, I did want to touch on some things that I read in our press notes about the two of you. They said you’ve known each other since you were teenagers, and you always knew that you were creatively connected. Do you remember the very first moment you looked at each other and saw someone who could be a good filmmaking partner?
SLOAN: That’s a great question. We met at a theater. A friend was doing a play; we were both in high school, and she was the ticket girl. So, I knew right away when I met her that she was interested in acting and storytelling. Over the years, obviously, we stayed in touch, and we kind of shared our aspirations and what we wanted to do. So, about 10 years ago, we started really exploring that creative partnership and talking about really making something. It wasn’t, unfortunately, until COVID and the world shutting down. It took that for us to be like, “Hey, man, what are we doing? We gotta make something happen here.”
MASTROIANNI: It was the kind of works that we were always connected on. I felt like you and I were kind of like the black sheep in our friend group, maybe, or our towns, so we came together for certain types of music or certain types of really small, independent, odd cinema.
Honestly, I feel like those personalities are usually the most interesting and exciting to be around.
MASTROIANNI: We were like, “You.” [Laughs]
SLOAN: “I see you.”
Where Did the Idea for ‘Gazer’ Come From?
Digging into this particular story now, can you both tell me what idea #1 was for the script, the thing that started it all, but then also, did you have a break story moment, something you came up with along the way that made everything finally feel whole?
SLOAN: We have two of those. One of them was Paul Schrader’s [Man in a Room]. We love Paul Schrader, and we were like, “What would happen if we did a [Woman in a Room], and instead of writing into a journal, she’s recording somehow?”
MASTROIANNI: I don’t know if that was the genesis of the idea, though. Ryan and I had been talking about making a film together, and I think the jump-off point was, “Which films really, really excite us that we haven’t seen in a long time?” I think a lot of those films happened to be in the ‘70s and ‘80s, kind of New Hollywood. But also, it wasChinatown. You introduced me toChinatownand I became obsessed with that.
SLOAN:Blow-Up.
MASTROIANNI: Yeah,Blow-Up. It was a lot of noir. Then I think somewhere along the way we discovered that some of our favorite films shared a similar narrative structure. But I feel like that might have been more the jump-off than the cassettes. Was it finding the condition? I don’t remember. It was a lot of things at once.
SLOAN: I think the big change, though, the thing that kind of kicked it into high gear was we started shooting in April. We thought we were finished with the script, and I made a comment to Ariella that, at some point, we should make a movie about a body in the trunk of a car in the Meadowlands. And Ariella was like, “Ding, ding!” She’s like, “Why don’t we make that in this movie?” And I was like, “That’s never going to work.”
MASTROIANNI: What I found so fun about that is in the early iteration of the film, without giving anything away, we had a lot of things happen off-screen, which we still kind of do because we’re following Frankie. But when he said that, I was like, “We can introduce this element.” Like, wecanhave these things on screen and give the audience anchor points.
The next thing I want to ask you paves the way to Mat signing on. It’s self-financing this movie, which can be an extremely scary thing, but it also can be a very necessary thing for new filmmakers. Can you take me through that conversation and what it was like saying, “We’re gonna pour a lot of our own resources into making this a reality?”
SLOAN: Like I said, we began this creative relationship 10 years ago, and before that, I’ve been working as an electrician since I was 13. Ariella has been working her butt off since she was a teenager, as well. We were saving up money to do this for years. We had a goal for years to make this happen, so it was the kind of mentality, kind of like what Mark Duplass says: “There’s no calvary coming.” There’s nobody that’s gonna come to New Jersey, knock on our door, and say, “Hey, you wanna be a moviemaker? Why don’t we give you a bunch of money?” It’s not gonna happen. So, we were at the mercy of ourselves. We had to take what we had and pour it into this. We’re still in debt, we’re still suffering, but it was worth it, and I’d do it all over again.
‘Gazer’ Cinematographer Matheus Bastos Joins the Team
Mat, I’ll turn to you now to build on that because when an opportunity like this comes your way, a movie that’s going to be self-financed by first-time feature filmmakers, that does come with a lot of risk. What was it about the two of them that made you say, “These are people that I feel safe with, and this is going to benefit me going forward as well?”
MATHEUS BASTOS: This was our first feature together, all of our first feature. We have done short films together, music videos together. Ryan and I share a very interesting sort of tethered history. We grew up in the same town blocks from each other, never knew each other, went to different schools, we went to the same college, never knew each other, and we had a lot of mutual friends in the music industry. We’re both in bands and never knew each other. So, we end up on this short film, all working pro bono. Ryan was first AD, Ariella was the other AD and wardrobe, and I was the gaffer, and we just sort of discovered each other and fell in love and started that, and that was back in 2017.
And so we started our first short films, and that continued, and as we all grew on our path, Ryan just gave me a call and was like, “Hey, we’re making this movie. I sent you the script. Let’s meet tomorrow. It’s a neo-noir. We’re self-financing it, it’s gonna be shot on film, we’re gonna do weekends.” Just gave me everything that I think no one wants to hear, but it’s a group of people I love. And, yeah, I was nervous. I’d played a little bit with shooting on celluloid. Also, I was like, “Oh man, what’s a first feature like?” I feel people put a lot of pressure on the first feature, but it just felt really right.
It’s funny, Ryan and I had both listened to this certain podcast where these two filmmakers talked about getting together and making this film after some time apart. After our meeting, I was like, “I listened to this podcast last night about these two filmmakers, and he talked about making this movie.” He’s like, “I heard the same thing!” And it was all kind of like, “I thinkeverything’s aligning,” and it was meant to be. Even though, again, everything on paper was like, “This is a bad idea,” it felt like the right idea. I don’t think any of us foresaw it would take two years to shoot, how much more film we needed to buy, or the fact that on our final day of shooting, it was literally just us three reshooting the opening scene because people had to go and time. People had to go on and move on with their lives. I don’t think we foresaw how long that would take, but we also didn’t foresee the great heights it would reach, and it was just a commitment to the story, the crafts, the art form and into each other. And so that was like, “Alright, I’m in.”
I feel like some of what you said at the beginning of that answer speaks to why you were probably able to pull this off, having done work as a gaffer and I think you mentioned you had AD’d something. There’s nothing that’s more helpful in this industry than to have an understanding of a multitude of jobs on a film set in order to either do the multitude of jobs yourself or elevate other people’s work because you understand what they have to put in to make it happen.
BASTOS: Absolutely. On day one, we had no idea. We weren’t imagining this on day one of shooting. We were like, “Are we going to finish the day?”
MASTROIANNI: “Did we get it?” [Laughs]
BASTOS: When you just focus on that, and you’re on the same page, it does wonders.
Speaking of understanding other people’s work, and other people’s tools, Ryan, you mentioned you were an electrician and I was also reading that when you were younger, it was a hobby to take apart cameras and put them back together. So Mat, for you, how does it make your experience as a DP different when you’re working with a director who has an understanding of the tool that you need to work with?
BASTOS: As a cinematographer, all that I look for is a sense of vision, right? And that’s from any collaborator, whether it’s a director, my gaffer, my colorist, you guys with editors — you look for a vision, right? So suddenly, when I feel like I’m at my best self, when I have a director who not only understands the tools that we’re working with but understands the visual language and the medium and the art of storytelling. Ryan meticulously story-boarded every scene of the movie, and I never looked at the storyboards and was like, “This is bad.” Whether or not we use them, whether a location change, or whatever, it was always like, there’s a sense of understanding, a knowledge of it, like a student-like passion, but also like curiosity, right?When you meet intention with curiosity, that’s when you create something that is beyond what you could have imagined. So, I think that that’s what allowedmeto do my best work was to have other people putting in their best work, as well.
Let’s jump to finding Frankie now. This is one of my absolute favorite questions to ask, and I think I’m even more excited to ask it given how you all wrote the script and shot the film. I’ve had a lot of actors tell me that jumping into a new film can be scary because you’re on unstable ground at the beginning, but then you have that moment, either in prep or on set, when you do something and you stop and say to yourself, “I have just figured out who my character is.” Did you have that with Frankie, and if so, when?
MASTROIANNI: Yeah. Developing Frankie was interesting. Obviously, Ryan and I wrote the character together, so, in terms of backstory and research, we had done a lot of that work on a writing level. We did that over the course of a year and a half, speaking to doctors, just really, really taking my time with the research. The thing is, since we shot over two years, having to go back into that character was something I had never done before. You’re usually in it, and maybe you do reshoots in like a month or whatever, but coming in and out of that was very difficult.
So, what I decided was that the thing that was gonna be the most helpful to me for this character wasRyan developing a very specific physical language for her. If we could work on the physicality of Frankie and the arc of her physicality throughout the movie, even if we were running around and doing producing work or whatever, there was a physical shape that I could land in that would be the anchor point for the character. That was really helpful because you’re running around, you’re crazy, you’re unfocused, you have so many things going on, but it’s like, “I know in this scene, this is her shape.” It was just the tool that we developed that helped me really kind of lock in.
‘Gazer’ Celebrated Its World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival
I did really want to talk about the film festival experience you’re having right now because, again, it is a feat to have seen this movie through to the finish line and not only are you here at Fantastic Fest, but your movie also got into Cannes. That is areallybig deal. Can you two walk me through the conversations you had early on about how you hoped the film would get out into the world and then what your reaction was when it got accepted into that film festival of all film festivals?
SLOAN: I think it was in 2021 or so, Ariella was working at the Angelika Film Center, and she has to… I mean, I guess you should explain this.
MASTROIANNI: It was part of my work on the programming team to look at all the festivals and just track the films that were coming out of the festival. So, when I was doing research on Fortnight, I told Ryan, I was like, “Oh, this is a festival, and this is a section of a festival that I think really speaks to what we’re doing.” I was like, “We need to keep an eye on this,” especially for him as a director.
SLOAN: And then, like Matt said, production continued on for years. Finally, we got the film to a certain point where we were like, “This is it. I need to personally let go of this.” And I was like, “Oh, when is the Fortnight submission due? Cannes is in like a month and a half.” And I went online — it was that day. So, I didn’t tell anybody; I just immediately started typing everything out, and I hit send. A couple of weeks later, I had a call with the Fortnight committee leader, Julien Rejl, and everything changed.
Paying It Forward: Check Out This Cinematographer Next
I wanted to make sure to carve out time for this because part of the reason you’re all sitting here is because I heard wonderful things about the film, but it was also because last year, someone told me about Mat while sitting on this couch, and I love the idea of paying it forward in this industry because I’m a big believer that we all need to pull each other up every single step of the way. What happened wasOren Soffer was sitting on this couch, and I know with Oren,Greig Fraseris a mentor and he kind of pulled Oren up, so I asked Oren, “Is there another cinematographer out there that I need to know about now?” He told me Mat’s name, we connected, and then, sure enough, this year,youare here with a film of your own.
BASTOS: He mentionedGazerin that interview. He said, “I think he has a film calledGazer.” And a year later, here we are.
Yes, he did! I truly will never forget it. But now I am going to give you that same job. You are sitting here this year. Give me another cinematographer who I could cross paths with down the line.
BASTOS: I have a very dear friend who I love very much as a person but also as an artist. Her name is Lauren Guiteras. She was the DP of a film that came out recently calledDandelionwith IFC films. Lauren is a friend who just moved to New York like a year or two ago and we connected, and right away, I felt a sense of kindred spirit. She is a warrior for cinema. She is all about world cinema, independent films. She’ll go make movies in the millions range and go make a movie for under half a mil. Her and I just found this kindred spirit of, like, I’m always calling calling her to talk about films and what we’re working on and the future, and, “How do you approach this?” I always say, “You’re my indie narrative confidant,” and she does the same for me. So, I want to give Lauren a shoutout. I think Lauren is a DP who will do many, many great things —hasbeen doing, but very excited to see where she goes now.
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I have been ending every Fantastic Fest interview on this particular question because we kicked off our run here withThe Rule of Jenny Pen. One of my favorite things that came up during that interview was the director, James [Ashcroft], was saying how incredible it was to see acting legends like John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush take such pride and joy in their work on set. For each of you, what was the single moment of makingGazerthat brought you the most joy as artists?
MASTROIANNI: Oh my god.
BASTOS: My mind’s racing through, like, two years. This year, that year, this year, that year. I think I have one. It was less of an on-set moment but just prior to on-set. Our first week of shooting, we did a lot of block shooting — shoot three days here, go down for a week or two, come back, come down for a month. I was in another country shooting a different project that had gone, unfortunately, really sour, and I was just really down and waiting to come back home. We had just finished our first week of shooting, and it’s all our first feature, you don’t know what that looks like, what that feels like, and I haven’t heard any updates. Because we were shooting on film on such a low budget, we didn’t have dailies. We would shoot and, like, two months later, get our scans back, so we don’t know what it looks like when we’re shooting. I was overseas, and this production had some unfortunate things happen, and I was feeling really down. I went back to my hotel room, and I opened up my laptop to an email from Ryan that says, “Hey, Matty, hope all’s going well. Here are some stills from the movie.” And I got to see our work for the first time, and I was like, “Oh, wow! We’re making a movie.” And not only did it feel right, it affirmed me as a DP because I was like, “This looks like a movie, and it feels really good.” All I wanted in that moment was, “I wanna go home and finish this movie.”
SLOAN: Little did he know he’d have to wait six months. [Laughs]
What a beautiful answer.
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MASTROIANNI: There are two moments because the journey of Ryan and I writing the script was a learning curve because it was our first time and we had gone through the gamut of 100 really terrible versions and trying to figure out what the story was. There was one moment where I had, throughout the day, kind of broke new ground and Ryan was working in a prison at the time during COVID, and he came home to see what I had done, and when he read it, he got so excited. He was like, “Oh my god, oh my god! This is a breakthrough.” And he hugged me and lifted me up, and he was like, “Okay, we’re going somewhere.” That moment was such a crucial turning point in the script development. Then, I think on set, we would end every night with a movie.
SLOAN: That’s what I was gonna say.
MASTROIANNI: We would watch movies together.
SLOAN: We would stay up late, and Ariella would yell at us all night to be quiet.
MASTROIANNI: [Laughs] That’s true! I was like, “I do have to go to bed.” We would all stay in the same Airbnb, there were maybe six or seven of us, and we would finish our nights by watching a film in the world ofGazerthat Ryan would program. He was our curator.
SLOAN: There was one night where I programmed the film that was not in the world ofGazer. It was calledHouseand it was one of the greatest experiences of our lives.
BASTOS: It was like a core memory.
SLOAN: It was a lot of our first time watchingHouse.
MASTROIANNI: We were eating Cuban food, sitting on the ground.
SLOAN: Everything we did over the past four years has been in service of this film. So, we rented our apartment based on it being a location for the movie. It’s a small apartment, it’s Frankie’s apartment, and yeah, we watched it on the floor together, eating Cuban food with our hands.
Frankie, a mother suffering from dyschronometria—a rare brain condition affecting her perception of time—takes a dangerous job to support her daughter. As paranoia grips her, Frankie’s new role leads her into a web of deception and murder, testing her ability to navigate reality and protect her family.
