Latest / Cinema Yūgen / Exposing the Story: Filmmaker Harley Wallen Discusses 'Finding Nicole'

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Exposing the Story: Filmmaker Harley Wallen Discusses 'Finding Nicole' · Cinema Yūgen

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  G'day. That's right. It's that time again. Time for Cinema Juga.
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  Yes, welcome back. Cinema Juga in this week.
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  Harley Wallen, a Swedish-American writer,
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  director best known for his work in
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  films betrayed bennett's song and moving parts
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  wallen was born in sweden started training
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  in martial arts when he was seven years old he had
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  his first opportunity acting as a dancer in
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  a swedish television program he later moved to
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  the united states to pursue a career in
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  acting he is the founder of painted creek productions and
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  he's here to talk about his latest film finding nicole
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  please welcome him to cinema you
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  can the mighty harley walland g'day
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  harley thank you thank you i appreciate it thanks for having me thanks for thanks
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  for being on the show mate festival congratulations for finding nicole which
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  thank you finally got around to checking it out last night link will be in the
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  description though Finding Nicole has already been reviewed by my editor, Alan Ng, at Film Threat.
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  Link to that review will be in the description. But my review is it,
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  look, compared to all of your other films, like you're mostly known for action
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  and all that sort of thing, action, suspense,
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  horror, thrills, chills, excitement.
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  This was a relative change of pace. What made you want to go dramatic? Yeah.
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  As opposed to what you normally do so i
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  i'll be honest with you i am not as attached to
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  labels and genres as a lot of
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  other people are i am i want a great story to
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  usually that's what i care about if i have a great story i
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  ask myself are the interest are the characters interesting and
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  compelling that's kind of the route i like to
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  go but this one was different my lawyer
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  at the time who since unfortunately passed away
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  said i met with this woman she
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  has netflix reached out and they wanted to do a
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  documentary on i am a stalker about this
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  case uh but i think she
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  needs her story told because it's a pretty wild
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  story that it get picked up by you know
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  what is it called inside evil with chris cumo and and
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  it's here from michigan where we all are where
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  i am so i said i'll go
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  listen to this and i sat down with nicole
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  and we chatted for probably two two three
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  hours and she was telling me her whole case brought.
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  A bunch of her case files with her and at
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  the time nobody really knew that i
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  grew up in a household of domestic violence and and
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  i haven't said anything my whole life it's kind of you
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  know i'm a retired professional fighter and
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  i i was undefeated when i retired i was on the
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  national team in two martial arts and i think
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  a lot of what i did was fight my stepdad over
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  and over and over again in the ring in my head and.
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  That was my therapy at the time but i
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  never said anything about what happened when i grew up and this gave me a chance
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  to have a voice on something that i think is epidemic so i felt like i couldn't
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  pass up on this opportunity to tell this story. So hopefully that showed up.
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  Oh, no, definitely, definitely. And I do like your approach, too, the fact that –.
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  That genre doesn't immediately factor into
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  your decisions in which films that you make because so often
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  today particularly when you you take a film out to
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  market they're like well what genre is it that's the first thing
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  that they ask yeah as opposed to what
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  are the good stories you know and i kind of
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  miss that i kind of miss that era where it felt
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  like they were more in search of good stories than genre films
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  don't wouldn't you say yeah yeah i think
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  that the marketplace makes that very difficult because i
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  can tell you you know looking back i can see
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  uh we made a couple of films that were
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  thriller-esque with with betrayed and eternal code
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  and those did incredibly well and then
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  we did a round of a few horror films also that
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  have done really well and we've done
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  a couple of things in between we did a a bennett
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  song holiday which was one and and
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  it's like it's like it just was a
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  little tiny thing because it's just
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  not what people are shopping for the same way
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  and the the amount of name value
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  you need making a film like that is drastically different
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  than making an inspirational or a horror film or whatever it may be so i think
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  the marketplace unfortunately is kind of playing with us filmmakers as far as
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  what it asks from us right do you think it's because with genre they kind of.
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  Know what they're selling thus they know how to market it.
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  Yeah and i think we we are we've become
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  it's really interesting but i i remember hearing
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  about you know the the executives at the
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  record companies years ago you know you and you have eckman and freddie mercury
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  with this crazy song and and it's opera and it's this and then they were like
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  yeah it's good to go and now it's all algorithms and this and that it's all
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  mathematical equations and if you don't hit the mark then it doesn't get done and it's like.
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  It's a tough space for me because i love making horror
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  where the focus if you've seen you know ash and
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  bone it's like if you took the original
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  halloween the bloodless halloween and then
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  you added you know the hills have
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  eyes and they had a baby you know
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  what i mean like so i like doing unique takes on things right
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  so it's tough tough to to be that
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  in today's world but i i love what
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  i do so so i think that i'm just
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  going to keep doing what i do i have a i have another film coming
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  out called fathers which is a mental
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  twist story to figure
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  out essentially what happened to this young girl but i
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  love making films that make you think a
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  little bit that make you maybe consider when you.
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  Watched beneath us all it's a it's a
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  story about a foster parents that
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  are ill-equipped that you judge so quickly and
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  then when push comes to shove they're out there sacrificing their
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  lives for these kids and it shows that the world is
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  a little bit more complex than what we think we like
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  things to be black and white and and and yes or
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  no and and that's not that's not the world we live
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  in we live in the gray world where you
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  know it's it's a complicated thing and and
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  we want simple solutions and they're just not there yeah
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  i mean do you think that that's also a trend
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  that's that's sort of unfortunately read its
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  head over the last 20 years is the fact that the complexity
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  of of stories and certainly the the
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  amount of what films used to not show you in
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  order for the fact that when you woke away they provoked discussion seems to
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  have disappeared too like with finding the cull it's a compelling story yes
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  a compelling film yes but it leads to a lot of thoughtful and provocative discussion
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  in the wake of the film. I think that's been lost too, wouldn't you say?
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  Yeah, I like the one thing that we have seen more, and I can say that it's been
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  very heartwarming, the amount of victims that have reached out and said,
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  I feel heard. I feel seen.
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  It literally, I mean, I'm happy when I hear a good review.
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  It's always nice, especially, you know, like you said, Film Threat,
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  just a phenomenal organization and they do fantastic things.
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  And to talk about all this is great.
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  But at the end of the day, when you get a victim saying, I feel heard and I feel seen, that is gold.
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  I mean, I can't even tell you how good that feels. We had a woman that recorded
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  a long response to the film.
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  And it was just amazing because she said all these things that get glossed over
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  about where do I go? What do I do?
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  How would I afford to? And all those questions that get involved.
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  As well as you know these officers you know
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  if you look at statistics at least in this country unfortunately the
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  police have not the greatest track records
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  with domestic violence themselves and then add
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  the complexity of that the only thing they do
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  more than domestic violence is traffic so
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  so it's it's such a complicated issue
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  there's so many people involved and there should
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  be a discussion um for sure now having
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  uh had some experiences as a court reporter listening
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  to a lot of domestic violence trials unfortunately
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  in my experience i i'm i came
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  to it in the wake of of sort of the worst had already happened kind of thing
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  your your film sort of charts the the progress of how something the germ of
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  something starts something so pure and then it degenerates into something horrible and evil.
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  I mean, I remember sitting in some...
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  Some hearings like sentencing hearings for
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  men who were being sent away for domestic violence
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  crimes and some of them i mean
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  not to say that what's depicted the film is
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  not horrific but some of them i i really think
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  would might be a little bit too horrific to to film
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  certainly they would be impactful to
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  the point that people might switch off yeah
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  especially when especially when it turns violent you
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  know it's yeah you know yelling and screaming is one
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  thing and pushing and shoving is one thing but when it turns
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  into what it turns into in
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  the film yeah that's when you
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  know it it goes over that goes over
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  into that area where you have to be careful what you're
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  what you're depicting and how you're depicting because
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  there's people are gonna there's people gonna come after you and
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  say that's too graphic but there's also
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  people going to come after you saying that that's not
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  oh it's worse than that that's that's pretty
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  mild compared to what actually happens you know have you yes things like that
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  yeah no it's been a it's been really interesting because again like i said some
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  of the some of the victims especially that have had pretty gruesome cases feel
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  that maybe we didn't take it far enough. Maybe we didn't make it.
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  Graphic enough i am not an exploitation guy
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  unless it calls for it now i
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  have a script called animus which is if
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  i ever make this will make people go oh
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  my god i thought he didn't do that but it's not that
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  i don't do it it's about whether or not it's
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  called for i think that's what dictates it
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  for me because i've seen some films that are
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  pretty graphic and i felt that it was justified it
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  was called for i've seen some most of
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  the time it's not really called for and it's filler and
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  and to me is it a horror movie or am i just grossed out and and i i i would
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  like it to be hitting me from that angle instead when it comes to to that so
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  not a big fan of exploitation just for the sake of it. Right.
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  This film has a wonderful script, but also wonderfully directed,
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  but you have an incredible cast in this movie, including Richard Tyson.
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  Yeah. Who was actually in a film I wrote called The Legend of Horrors. Oh, cool. Western.
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  Sean Whalen, who I've also interviewed on the show for his movie,
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  Crust, which was… Yeah, Sean is awesome. Yeah, Sean's great.
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  But now it says it says that you're in it but i didn't
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  see you in the film did you did you end up on the
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  cutting room floor i was on the cutting room floor
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  if you watch the police car pull out i am the officer in the police vehicle
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  driving out my character had a brief interaction with uh deborah lamb who played
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  the mother in the front while she was in the back talking to
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  the other officer um but we wanted it down to 90 minutes because that's what
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  everybody said that uh a film like this needs to be there especially if you're
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  aiming for that market so so that's what we went for you uh.
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  How do you feel about the state of independent films as they are at the moment?
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  I mean, Hollywood at the top of the tier has been struggling ever since COVID.
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  Independent films seems to be, I wouldn't say, well, to say it's running along
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  smoothly is because nothing ever goes truly smoothly.
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  But how do you see the state of independent films since the pandemic anyway,
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  which threw everything? Yeah, I think the pandemic was curveball and then the
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  strike was another curveball.
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  And I think it's twofold. I think I've seen that independent film can do a lot
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  of things that the studios can't do because they can't take the chances that
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  I believe we can take in independent film.
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  But they're trying really hard to strangle the nozzle. If you look at just Rotten
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  Tomatoes, how many have been downgraded and can't do Rotten Tomatoes reviews anymore.
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  Or how hard it is to get your announcements into deadline and variety.
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  All the gatekeepers, if you want Getty photography at your premiere,
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  is 10 times harder. So they're making it harder and harder for us to go mainstream,
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  but they don't understand, I think, that we can do the things that they don't dare.
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  And then I think A24 has opened up a really interesting door because they're
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  doing a little bit of both.
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  So they can play on that middle game where you can have original thoughts.
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  You don't have to reboot and remake and spin off and do all those things.
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  You can stick to some kind of original storytelling.
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  And I also think, and with me being from Michigan, we have a big urban market here.
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  If you go to Tubi, the Detroit market is dominating Tubi at the moment.
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  And it's pretty incredible to see that too, because that is another thing that
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  you haven't seen a lot of, but a lot of urban films are really exploding right
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  now and drawing a big market and a lot of market share.
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  And I think that's pretty cool, too, to just get some influx and some new ideas
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  and some fresh looks on screen.
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  Sure. And, I mean, now more than ever, it's important that there is variety
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  because the studios haven't just fallen.
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  They're leaning completely into the risk-averse nature where everything is,
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  if it's not based on an IP, it's a sequel.
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  If it's not a sequel, it's a reboot. If it's a reboot, it's a remake.
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  And so on and so forth.
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  And it's funny to hear them talk about, well, you know, to hear certain critics
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  talk about fatigue as far as these cookie-cutter films.
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  But like you said...
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  There's this silly resistance to keep filmmakers and films like yours,
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  restrained, or at least in the lane that you're in, rather than getting any
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  sort of wide exposure, which seems foolhardy because there used to be a very
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  strong middle ground in the film industry.
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  Yeah, it's quite interesting when you look at it because I think we can be a
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  – I would always just think of us as a minor league.
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  Right, yeah. we draw our own crowd we have our
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  own you know things we get some players that
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  are maybe are a little too old to play but still got
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  some in them and we have the up-and-comers that
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  are going to be the next superstars and i think that
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  was a good relationship and i think the
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  greed has become a major player in
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  the world and and i for a little while
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  it wasn't really like that for a little while i think people
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  were sharing pretty well and all of
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  a sudden it became my precious and everybody wants
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  to have everything all of a sudden and i think that's the
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  the bigger problem is i think that everybody thinks
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  that there's only enough for them instead of
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  instead of understanding it's symbiotic and.
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  That we're all benefiting if everybody
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  gets a piece of the pie well it's
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  it's really great that there are filmmakers like yourself that are
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  out there promoting not just independent film but looking
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  to launch the the talent
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  of the future because that is if there
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  is going to be a future it will come from uh the
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  talent pools that exist in independent film as
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  they always have i mean people forget that a lot of the yeah the
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  powerhouses that we enjoy today and
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  and some that are no longer with us all began somewhere we
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  all began we all began somewhere Tom Hardy
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  not too long ago was in little indie films that
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  was not that long ago and he's a mega star and I
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  mean you can attest yourself throughout your career I mean you've come you you
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  didn't start off in cinema you started off you know far away and you've come
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  yeah you've come through yeah for sure many different levels in your career
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  so if you I mean I guess probably the best advice you'd give is just keep going no matter what the uh.
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  No matter what odds are thrown at you. Yeah. Yeah.
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  And I think also if you're the kind of person that has some kind of calling
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  with this, I don't need to make millions of dollars to be happy.
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  I live pretty small and I'm comfortable living small. I love creating things and I love sharing.
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  I think just doing this is perfect for me.
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  I don't need a whole lot of the other stuff. I just really enjoy making a film
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  and collaborating and the whole journey of going, whether I'm writing it or
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  if I'm a part of writing it or if I work with a writer.
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  I love figuring out these characters, starting to think about who could play
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  that and kind of getting them a look and feel in my head.
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  And then meeting with cast and starting to work with them and getting them to
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  see my vision and getting them to understand it.
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  And that whole process, every step of the way, and the collaborations on these
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  different places where everything starts becoming bigger than the film itself,
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  I love it, every step of it.
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  Well, Harley, you're a fantastic bloke, a fantastic filmmaker.
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  I wish you nothing but the best in the future. Finding Nicole is out now, true?
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  Where can people go out and see Finding Nicole at the moment?
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  Pretty much any place that has video on demand. So Amazon, Voodoo, Fandango, Spectrum.
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  I know that you can rent it at whatever this in demand and so on and so forth.
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  And I'm not aware yet where it's going after that. That stage is usually about 90 days, sometimes 120.
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  And then it usually goes to some form of streaming after that.
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  So hopefully it'll be somewhere where everybody can watch it.
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  And I know we have really good foreign distributors, actually in Australia, funny enough. Oh, cool.
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  One Tree Entertainment is our distributor, and they are an Australian foreign
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  distributor for us, and they're fantastic. Well done.
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  Go, go, go, go, Aussies.
• 20:37
  Yes. Thank you for being on the show, mate. Now, I know you've got some other films coming up.
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  Oh, you're promoting some other films too. Tell, while we've got you,
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  can you tell the audience about some other films that you've got coming down
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  the pipe, whether you're in them or directing them?
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  Yeah, so Final Recovery was made also and came out.
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  I directed and co-produced that with a team of producers and actors from Hollywood
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  that came and we did the film Up By Me.
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  And that was a lot of fun. wild ride had charlene tilton
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  lucy from dallas as our as our
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  main villain and she's fantastic had jasper cole
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  play the our our drug addict
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  who who went from being uh you know a no hope whatsoever into uh into finding
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  a way uh so final recovery is definitely a fun ride if anybody's interested
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  that one is on to be right now and and getting a lot of a lot of uh excitement
• 21:39
  about it And then, like I said,
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  Fathers is in post-production, will be wrapped up and sealed this week, this weekend.
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  And then we head out to the festivals and we'll see what happens with the sale
• 21:53
  of that one and where it goes.
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  But yeah, it's a psychological thriller, a bit of a mind fuck, so to speak.
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  So it's definitely one to put the thinking cap on for.
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  Cool. All right, Holly, thank you. I know it's hot there, and I know what you want.
• 22:12
  Get somewhere and chill out. I hope all the best with all the rest of your films, mate.
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  We're big fans here at Cinema Yugen. We hope very much that the success continues, mate.
• 22:27
  I appreciate it. It has been an absolute pleasure to have you on Cinema Yugen.
• 22:32
  Thank you. Thank you so much. I had a blast.
• 22:34
  Yes, Harley Wallen, great bloke, great film finding. Nicole
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  check the links in the description
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  great film great bloke great filmmaker looking
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  forward to everything else that Harley's got coming
• 22:48
  check all the links in the description and as always my little Eugenites thank
• 22:56
  you for listening to us on Spotify or wherever you choose to listen to your
• 23:00
  favorite podcasts I'm Kent Hill and until next time you've been listening to cinema.
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  Music.