Academy not what it seems in sci-fi thriller
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This article was published 25/02/2019 (2442 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Written as a dystopian fantasy, Danishka Esterhazy’s latest film raises some real-life questions about femininity and societal expectations.
Level 16 is set inside The Vestalis Academy, a prison-like boarding school for girls that preaches feminine virtues and cleanliness. The film follows 16-year-old residents Vivien (played by Katie Douglas) and Sophia (Celina Martin) as they pull back the veil on the school’s sinister purpose.
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The film has been a long time in the making for Esterhazy.
“I spent 10 years trying to get this film made and being told again and again by funders and distributors that there was no audience for science fiction about women… or made by women,” she said over the phone from South Africa, where she’s currently shooting a movie.
Esterhazy says the timing is right for dark female stories.
“It’s an issue of the floodgates being open,” she said, pointing to the popularity of series like The Handmaid’s Tale and crediting the Me Too and Time’s Up movements for a shift in the filmmaking industry.
“People have started to shine a light on some of the weird, outdated inequalities that exist in Hollywood,” said Esterhazy, who lives in Wolseley. “I think finally some of those barriers are breaking down and women who’ve wanted to tell science fiction stories for a long time are finally getting the chance.”
Esterhazy wrote and directed Level 16 and says the story was inspired by her own experiences in high school and Victorian etiquette manuals for women.
“Even though those manuals seem strangely outdated today, some of the themes from those educational systems are still around today,” she said. “We teach young women to be very accommodating, we discourage them from being independent, from being freethinkers.”
In the film, the girls are indoctrinated with morality lessons and made to follow a strict daily schedule of chores and hygiene routines. If they are disobedient they are punished and told they won’t be adopted by a good family once they graduate from the academy — a promise that proves far from reality.
Level 16 is Esterhazy’s third feature film and much of her work deals with female characters and experiences.
“As a filmgoer, I’ve always been really frustrated by the lack of representation of women both in front of and behind the camera and as a filmmaker I want to help change that as much as possible,” she said.
Level 16 was produced by Markham Street Films and has screened at several film festivals in Canada and abroad. It will be running at Cinematheque (304-100 Arthur St.) from March 28 to April 6.