Nina Forever – Blaine Brothers, Abigail Hardingham, and Cian Barry Talk the Film and More!
Drew Tinnin
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For Valentine’s Day this year, why not proposition the love of your life to share in your first threesome together? The directing duo of Ben and Chris Blaine certainly want to convince you to get a little kinky this weekend and check out their Kickstarter-funded horror-romance-comedy hybrid, Nina Forever (review), where two outcasts find out their budding relationship comes with some significant baggage when a dead ex-lover, Nina, comes knocking from the grave to join in on the fun.
Speaking with the Blaine brothers and stars Abigail Hardingham and Cian Barry recently, it’s apparent that they have grown even closer during their time on the festival circuit (where Nina garnered rave reviews), and it seems like they wouldn’t hesitate to jump in bed together all over again.
DC: Can you talk a little bit about Amanda Palmer’s involvement and how important her music and all the music in Nina Forever is to the overall tone you guys were able to achieve?
Ben Blaine: Amanda’s music was so important to us from the get-go. Right from the start, there are certain scenes where you’re writing it and you’re just like, ‘It’s that song.’ You know at the time when you’re writing a micro budget film with no backing whatsoever and you’re like, ‘Don’t think about that song because you won’t be able to afford that song; you can’t even afford a camera!’
With Amanda, the film is so inspired by her music, but we’re also well aware that when she tweets, the people who are gonna read that, they’re going to love the film. Chris cut together a teaser of some of the material that we’d shot, just taking some of the most beautiful and compelling and weird images, and he put it to one of Amanda’s tracks when the Kickstarter was still running… at that point, for this kind of tiny, low budget British film to start appearing in people’s subconscious for them to enjoy two years ahead of schedule was really great.
Chris Blaine: One of the really cool things about filmmaking these days is you’re able to connect with people via Kickstarter and get that community feeling going straight away. And also through Twitter because that’s how we got in touch with Amanda, just literally by tweeting at her. Just that ability to be able to talk to people you want to talk to is just a really fascinating and wonderful thing.
DC: Will you continue to use the Kickstarter model in the future? Do you see crowdfunding and social media as the future of independent film, or do you see it more as a great way to just get that first film made?
Chris Blaine: One of the things about Kickstarter is first and foremost you are asking your friends and family and the people that you know to help you make the thing happen. It starts feeling like you don’t want to go cup in hand to those people again for the next one, but at the same time, the fact that Nina’s getting out there and we are starting to connect with so many more people through it, you start being like, well actually, that model of being able to get support from your fans to be making the next thing and supporting each other as well… that sense of community and giving back is really nice. So, I think we’re always going to be a part of the Kickstarter community and we’re gonna be supporting other filmmakers. And, yeah, I’m sure we will be going back again and saying we’ve got this sort of a project. I’m not sure which one it’ll be yet, but it’s a really great thing to be doing.
DC: Cian, this question is for you as well. Was it surprising to see the horror community embrace the film at screenings along the festival circuit when your original backers might not have even looked at the film that way?
Chris Blaine: We didn’t look at the film that way when we wrote it! We were just writing something that came from the deepest, darkest places that we had thought of. We hadn’t set out to make a horror and I think one of the things we were worried about beforehand was it’s not really a horror film. The way that the horror community gets presented is they love genre beats and you mustn’t play with the rules and it’s really cool if you are playing with the rules and you are really knowledgeable about the rules in horror – and we thought, well, we’re not really doing that. It’s an emotional drama that uses the visual metaphor of blood and coming back from the dead.
Ben Blaine: I think we were really worried that guys like this Drew Tinnin guy from Dread Central would write reviews like, ‘This is no sort of horror movie and who the hell are these guys kidding?’ Instead, those first reviews that happened for us at SXSW were such an incredible experience, frankly, because for one, we weren’t expecting reviews to be quite as good as they were but, particularly, for the horror community to throw their arms open and go, yeah, this is a horror movie and we love the way in which it fucks around with the genre.
Abigail Hardingham: I actually thin that genre fans are more open to people messing with the rules. I find that horror fans are actually open … there’s a reason why they like extreme horror and a reason why they like really nuanced horror. I actually think they’re some of the most tender, loving audience members that I’ve ever met.
Cian Barry: From reading the script from the very beginning, I never thought it fit into any particular genre, and even as we were filming it didn’t seem to shove itself into anything in particular. You don’t quite know where it’s gonna go and that keeps the surprises in store.
DC: Rob, Holly and Nina – they’re all outsiders, they’re not the popular kids. Cian and Abigail, being artists and actors, were you drawn to these actors more because you related to that?
Cian Barry: Yeah, absolutely … Right from the beginning it’s so good to have interesting characters that you can get your teeth into and see real people who aren’t these ideal, perfect people. They’re flawed and they do stupid things. They make mistakes and they have feelings that you won’t expect and don’t expect yourself and they react to things in unexpected ways. It’s rare to see that in a script and in a film, I think.
Abigail Hardingham: When I read it, as an actor, you can’t help but put yourself into the character that you’re reading. When I read it, I thought I can’t handle the idea of anyone else playing her, really. She was just so complicated and so naive.
DC: The film is also about being a nonconformist. Nina doesn’t even conform when she dies; she rebels and comes back to life.
Ben Blaine: Stubbornly refusing.
Abigail Hardingham: You can’t really peg this anywhere, I hate pegging anyone or anything into a little pigeonhole so this is really bending and moving and growing in so many ways and that’s what was really exciting about it.
DC: Well, Cian, not to get too personal, but this probably wasn’t the way you first envisioned what a threesome with two women would look like when you were a little younger, am I right?
Cian Barry: (laughs) Well, no, I never either in personal or professional life saw this coming. In no way did I ever predict this would happen, classically trained doing Shakespeare on a stage, I didn’t see this happening. Then, when you throw a film crew around you and the fact that you were almost glued to a bed with fake blood, it got even more interesting!
Go make sweet, sticky love to Nina Forever this Valentine’s Day weekend when it arrives in select theaters and On Demand everywhere February 12.
Synopsis:
A darkly comedic romantic horror story exploring love and grief, Nina Forever follows Holly as she begins a relationship with her co-worker Rob, who is grieving over the recent death of his girlfriend Nina from a motorcycle accident. Holly has fallen for Rob and is determined to help him though his grief. Yet, every time they make love, Nina appears… tangled, bloody, and still fixated on Rob. Holly doesn’t freak out and run – she can deal with the dead girl sharing their bed, their lives, their minds. If it’s what Rob needs, it’s what she’ll do, regardless of the consequences.
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