The director who wasn't there

Irish director Juanita Wilson has not allowed her background to dictate her vision on screen as she tackles difficult stories set in Chernobyl and Bosnia

YOU CAN'T fault Juanita Wilson for ambition. When beginning their careers, most Irish directors start off in their back gardens. You know the sort of thing. They make a short film about their cat or improvise a feature at their birthday party. Wilson had bigger ideas. The director's first short, The Door,a spooky post-Chernobyl parable, was filmed in still-radioactive corners of the Ukraine. Her debut feature, As If I am Not There, a study of atrocities during the Bosnian conflict, was also shot in distant, unfamiliar territories.

The risks and challenges inherent in such ventures hardly need to be detailed, but both films turned out to be notable triumphs. The Doorreceived an Oscar nomination and As If I am Not There, which opens in cinemas this week, premiered to ecstatic reviews. A few months ago, Varietymagazine named Wilson, raised in Dublin, one of their directors to watch in 2011. It can pay to think big.

"It was ambitious, I suppose," says Wilson in her calm way. "But it seemed to be the right thing to do. I had been looking for something to direct for a while and then I found The Door, which is based on a true story. Maybe it was naivety on my part, but I wanted to shoot it where it was based. The same was true of As If I am Not There. You are emotionally informed by a location. If you are among the people to whom these events happened, then you learn from that."

Based on a book by journalist Slavenka Drakulic, the picture details the increasingly harrowing travails of Samira (Natasha Petrovic), a teacher recently arrived in a rural part of the former Yugoslavia. Serbian soldiers overrun the village and, after shooting the men, imprison the women in one room. A wretched ritual of rape and dehumanisation follows. Featuring a minimum of dialogue, the picture, elegantly shot by Tim Fleming, follows Samira as she makes a tentative alliance with an officer and struggles to retain her dignity.

“It’s a strong story and it’s not for the faint-hearted. So you never know how it will be received,” she says. “I have genuinely been delighted. The very first screening was in Sarajevo. We invited Slavenka Drakulic, the author, so that was daunting. But it went very well. Then, to our surprise, the screening was packed at Toronto.”

Wilson goes on to explain that, in adapting Drakulic’s book, a collection of testimonies, she was keen not to make any overt political statements. Yet the act of focusing on the raping of detainees is a political decision in itself. Is it not?

“Yes, it is. But, while watching it in that environment, you are aware that many different perspectives are in play. In that sense, it was very hard to watch with that audience.”

To use the language of academia, the representation of rape in cinema is “problematic”. Look away and you are, perhaps, being coy and evasive. If the director looks too closely, he or she risks accusations of voyeurism.

Wilson focuses on Samira’s face and shows the soldiers going about their awful business with a clinical detachment. One almost gets the sense the rapists feel obliged to act in this manner.

“What was foremost in my mind was to show no gratuitous nudity,” she says. “That’s a hard thing to do, but once you show a naked woman it becomes something else. I focus on her experience. It’s almost as if she is having an out-of-body experience.”

Hence the title: As If I am Not There.

“Yes. And you don’t even get the sense the soldiers are enjoying it. I cast them carefully. One man doesn’t look like he wants to, but he still makes that decision. You can’t gloss over it. But it is vital not to seem voyeuristic or sensationalist. That’s very tricky.”

Wilson comes across as a person with a very ordered mind. She answers questions in a crisp thoughtful manner. The elegant sweep of the film clarifies that she has also a very good eye. It comes as no great surprise to learn that she initially trained as a sculptor at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. Later she studied journalism, before moving into film production.

Despite her exotic name, she has no Spanish connections – her mother spent some time in Argentina and Juanita’s name is an acknowledgement of that. Is there a history of creativity in the family? “Not particularly. I think I had quite a quiet upbringing, actually. My father was a Latin teacher. My mother does make sculptures, but only for her own pleasure. Maybe there’s something there. But there’s no professional artistic background.” In the later stages of college, Wilson drifted towards photography and video. While experimenting in these fields, she began to suspect she was more interested in narrative than fine arts. Journalism looked like a good way of telling stories, but when Wilson moved into film production, she finally realised she had found the appropriate medium for her needs. Screen drama feels, she explains, like a neat blend of fine art and reporting.

Working with James Flynn, her husband of some years, she helped produce H3, a raw story of the hunger strikes, and the sentimental disability drama Inside I'm Dancing.

Among the most experienced producers in Irish film, Flynn has credits on such pictures as Veronica Guerin, Becoming Jane, PS I Love Youand The Tudors. Few international productions filmed on this island step out without Flynn's involvement.

The benefits of having such an experienced brain in the house are obvious. But it must make it hard to get away from work. Do budgetary concerns or casting decisions get raised when the dishwasher is being filled or the lawn mower is being repaired? “A comment can be thrown out at a certain point and you will find yourself saying: ‘What do you mean?’” she says slightly gnomically. “You are so present with the material when developing stuff. But I am so, so lucky in that he really does love film.

“He understands cinema more than anyone I know. He knows what it takes to make film. If money is short, he immediately knows what we spend it on and what we don’t spend it on.”

The professional coupling certainly has worked so far. Last year, while editing that rape scene in As If I am Not There, Wilson received news that The Doorhad been nominated for an Academy Award. Her eyes widen as she discusses entering the Kodak Theatre for the ceremony itself. Nothing had prepared her for the size of the operation.

There were less pleasant shocks in store later, however. In a diary for the BBC, she told how, after receiving invitations to an Oscar party given by the Weinstein Company, Harvey and Bob Weinstein's film studio, they turned up to be told there was no space left at the event. While other, more desperate invitees huddled in the car park, The Doorteam wisely turned on their heels.

“There’s a whole other world out there and it takes a lot of hard work to position yourself. But that was completely ridiculous. It was appalling. You are invited and then turn up to be told that, unless someone leaves, you can’t go in. I could be doing other things, thanks. It’s just extraordinary. We are not that desperate. Imagine that happening in Ireland!”

Wilson seems to have survived the snub with her enthusiasm undimmed. She is currently developing a film version of The Ones You Do,an early book by Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone. Once again, one is impressed by her ambition.

Working from Dublin, she is planning a film that – with its Cajun flavours – could not be more American in setting or tone.

Will it be an Irish production? “I imagine so. It’s set in America obviously. I haven’t even finished the script,” she says.

"That Varietything was great, because people do have an awareness of you. Nothing will get made unless they like the script. But all of these things mean that they will take your call. Which is a start. But you're only as good as the script."

As If I Am Not Thereis on limited release from tomorrow