Filmmakers Celine Held and Logan George have had quite the journey when it comes to the release of their first feature film. With years of research and numerous short films under their belt, “Topside” was meant to premiere at the 2020 SXSW before the pandemic caused everything to come to a screeching halt. Now with their release having premiered at the Venice Film Festival, the pandemic-delayed debut is gaining quite a bit of buzz.
Drawn from the stories of those who lived underground beneath the subway system in New York City and inspired by conversations with mothers in these dire situations, “Topside” is a traumatizing and gripping tale about a mother and daughter who are forced above ground, homeless, on a cold winter night. Our critic wrote, “There’s little hope, optimism, or rays of light to be found here, but in shining a stark and unflinching light at the marginalized, Held and George have made an arresting debut that certainly poises them as ones to watch in the future.”
We spoke to the filmmakers about their inspiration for “Topside,” what made them interested in filmmaking, and the particulars that went behind one of the most grueling scenes in the film.
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Light plot spoilers below
This is your first feature film – what it was about this story that made you want to tell it in a feature-length format opposed to your other work in short film?
Celine Held: We’d actually been writing the script for a number of years together before we’d even made any of our shorts. I’d been working at JumpStart Americorps with a bunch of underprivileged children on the Lower Eastside with many of whom were living under the poverty line. At the same time, I was babysitting children on the Upper East Side and it was crazy to see the huge disparity. I was also reading a book by Jennifer Toth called “The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City” where the quote from the start of the film came from and it just felt like it spoke to exactly who these children were. Some of them do know how to make dinner and use a stove in really tiny kitchens and these things were shocking to me and I hadn’t seen a story about a child like this yet especially in New York. Logan and I wanted to tell something that was cinematic to look at and it be something you’d never seen before. So the tunnel really came into focus for us which is also from Jennifer’s book and Margaret Morton’s “The Tunnel,” which is a collection of photographs she took during the 1980s and ’90s of hundreds of people who lived in this specific tunnel beneath New York City. It all came from wanting to tell a story that we hadn’t seen before that felt really relatable, in a city that’s relatable but with circumstances that aren’t for a lot of the world.
You mentioned you’ve been working on this particular story for longer than your short films. Was this story what jump-started your interest in filmmaking?
Held: We both have degrees in drama from NYU and we both had these kind of small careers as actors but you’re part of a much larger story when you’re an actor. As an actor the choices you make are sometimes cut out in editing or your character is cut out entirely in the edit and for us we had these really strong instincts and stories we wanted to tell and it really started with writing the script for “Topside.” We spent so much time in the tunnels and we even met the girl who plays Little (Zhalia Farmer) a year before we went into production and we rewrote the script to suit her. I think these things along with how we work led us to making some shorts to prove that we could direct this.
For “Caroline” particularly, the short that stars a six-year-old, we had the thought that we should film a short that stars a young child so that we can prove we can make “Topside.” We made six short films in two years and we just pooled all of our money and put everything we are into making this work. We’re so lucky we got in right before COVID. It feels like this movie is a little bit like a time capsule to what New York City was – and will be again, we hope.
You wear a lot of hats between the two of you – directing, writing, editing, acting – is this just a byproduct of how you were making films, and how does it affect your process?
George: I think maybe because we didn’t go to film school or have that idea of there being a sense of hierarchy in that division of labor, some of our first shorts are just built completely from the ground up by us – writing, directing, acting in it, editing it like you said – just out of necessity. We started editing our own stuff because we knew we couldn’t afford an editor at that moment. When we transitioned to a feature-length film that was definitely one of the biggest transitions with us and getting our vision across all of these department heads and really being able to communicate with everybody and ultimately trust the people we were collaborating with. We have a natural inclination – because there’s two of us I think – that we can take it all on and we can do it ourselves and that’s just not possible.
Held: Also our crew – our production designer, our costume designer, especially our cinematographer, our gaffer in lighting that whole tunnel – that was pitch black because it’s a real tunnel – what they brought to our project, it would have been worse if we’d been trying to wear all of those hats.
George: Not just execution but creatively they brought so many ideas to the table that we could have never come up with on our own.
Held: As far as me acting in the film, that feels like in this specific project, was a necessity because I’d spent so much time with Zhalia Farmer. We’d lost financing and we got really close with this family and didn’t know if we would be able to cast her because we didn’t know when we would get financing and by then she might’ve grown out of the role. She’s the middle child of five kids and they’re just really wonderful and we really bonded with them. For me to play the mom meant that she would look to me if she needed anything, rather than look towards or off camera. We built a relationship, we became friends and we rewrote the script to fit who she is. She never memorized lines but instead was right there in the moment, responding to stimuli. We did very long takes with her and I wore a small earpiece and Logan would let me know if she’d lost focus and suggest we go back and we’d build it around her mood in trying to find who this character was rather than deciding she’d say lines on a page. So it just became important that I play the mom for those reasons.
One of the sequences I was most struck by was when Little and Nikki first arrive above ground in New York and Little is overwhelmed by the noises and lights – how did you create such an anxiety-inducing moment?
George: We knew from the very beginning that we wanted the whole thing to have a documentary style, found footage vibe so we constructed it so that we would have long takes and give our DP free range to frame and move about the space the way that a documentarian would. It wasn’t such a prescriptive shot list because we wanted it to feel very found. We knew we would be getting to these moments that become very chaotic and moments where Little is lost and we’re running through the subway with Nikki – these moments where we knew we wanted to just be running with the camera. The cinematography is building to these moments and we wanted to kind of turn things on their heads and we all know and understand New York City and it’s very pedestrian to all of us so what would it be to get really, really tight with tight focal lengths we shot on but on a big open sidewalk in a massive intersection. We wanted Little to just be picking out individual things with her eyes jumping moment to moment because she can’t quite process the whole image and similarly can’t process the unique sounds so there’s this blurring together of all these new, foreign elements that ultimately paint this picture as all-consuming.
I noticed that with “Topside” and your short “Caroline” there seems to be an interest in both children forced to grow up too quickly and also mothers doing their best despite not being picture-perfect or always easily sympathetic. Is this due to your work background and is it a thread you’d be interested in further exploring?
George: I think the takeaway for us is that it’s not a black and white character. Whatever protagonists or leading characters we take on in the future it wouldn’t be someone who is perfectly noble or has nothing but the cards stacked against them and you have complete sympathy for them. We’re really interested in characters that exist in the gray that is the human experience. We want our audience to be constantly reevaluating the relationship to the protagonists because that’s what’s interesting to us. So we’re never out to do any kind of hand waving or finger-pointing or pass judgment on anybody. We’re just trying to exist in that murky space.
Held: It just so happens that the next project we’re working on is a mother/daughter story and it’s just a coincidence, I swear [laughs.]
I feel like shockingly it’s not actually a relationship that’s explored enough in films. I always at least appreciate mother and daughter relationships on-screen because there can be so much there. Especially if they’re a little volatile but also filled with love.
George: We could certainly see the complexities of the mother and daughter relationship more. Maybe we’ve seen this relationship before but they’re painted with very broad strokes and so we’re out to sort of explore different aspects.
Held: Mothers are human and daughters are too. In our process, I tend to work the first kind of draft whereas Logan is our editor on the backend and so I tend to veer more towards female protagonists and strong female characters. But then also, away from that trope of “strong female characters” and into broad female characters and female characters that are messy and sweaty and human and exist outside of the balance of what a woman should be. The character Nikki is going through a lot and is a victim of a lot of different circumstances in her own right but also is making choices I disagree with on a very fundamental level. I think and hope that with her being portrayed in this way we can bring about some level of compassion and empathy even though we do disagree with their choices because we can see something admirable within it.
What do you hope for audiences to take away from the film?
George: We were out to make an experience that was very immersive. Again, the idea of something that’s not super analytical but that is a very simple, straightforward story at the end of the day. The immersion factor was key and feeling like you were experiencing things through the eyes of this child and then having all of that turned on its head when we’re left alone with Nikki. So that experience that the audience goes through I hope leaves them very stirred and shaken up in a way they can’t just get rid of. Hopefully, they’re exposed to a type of desperation that’s so intrinsic to the story that they walk away with a little bit of an understanding of what that can feel like to be out with nowhere to call your home and what you’d resort to under those circumstances. We hope people have conversations. We weren’t out to tie some bow around the story about what comes up – there are no easy answers to any of this.
Click here to read more of our coverage from the 2020 edition of the Venice Film Festival.