Okay.

Yep.

And, uh, my cousin had a, uh, a wind tower with a turbine on it back in the '70s, and there was, uh, problems with the, with the turbine, and then the company went out of business, so he just left the tower up.

Tower...

Uh, the turbine was gone, and he said he'd give me the tower, and I talked to Mike, and he said he'd take it down for me for a, for a certain charge, and so we agreed to do that.

So go on.

And, uh, so that worked out well, and I paid him.

He took the tower down, did a good job.

Talk about your castmates and working with them.

Oh my God, that was one of the joys of this film.

I, I...

So Amela Meen, Georgia King, and Martin Wallström, we all, the first day we all met, we stayed at the same hotel.

We immediately got along and we spent, uh, a lot of time together.

And, and it's, it's funny because we, we all kind of were at similar places in our careers, we're all around the same age, uh, and we all felt the same way about the script in that it's like there's so much we can bring to this.

And I, and I, and we really talked, uh, about every scene and who we were so much.

Did he give you guys some room to play a little bit?

you first come up with this idea, Maria?

I'll tell you, it's actually kind of a wild story.

Someone sent me a review of The Righteous, my first film.

Yes.

And they were like, hey, this is interesting.

And I read it, and it was complimentary, so I loved it.

Sure.

We're talking about his movie, The Voices of Our Mother, and we've got lots more to see and be seen and heard

Mm-hmm.

All this seemed very unreal to me, uh, when I decided I kinda wanted to do it.

And I remember, um, I went to university in, in Newfoundland as well while I was acting, doing theater, and doing Republic of Doyle the first season.

I was finishing my degree.

I went back to Newfoundland 'cause I was living in Toronto.

So it was like this long journey, and I remember I, um, I got this, uh, uh- ... award that, uh, was for, like, achievement under an alumni under the age of 35 or whatever.

And I remember I took my mom to it, my mom and my sister, or my mom and my, and my wife Georgina, and I think my sister too, whatever.

[laughs]

no i mean but seriously like just playing on the idea that yeah this is this is in me how long was this idea in you for

You know, it came to me in a very, very strange way.

I remember when The Righteous came out, it was really complimentary reviews.

And I remember someone sent me one.

And they were like, hey, look at this nice review.

And I was like, oh, cool.

And it was really nice.

What do you think, where do you think that comes from? What do you attribute your continuation to be able to work and make things that you like?

And you're... writing you're directing you're acting in the piece is there ever a part where you're looking back at the writing and saying who wrote this shit who boxed us in this corner right now and why

i still like i uh somewhere someone sent me a clip of my first film the righteous a while ago and i i hadn't seen the movie since it's been released because i saw it so many times uh obviously when you're editing and going to the screenings and i was like i wrote this like what the fuck what was i going through like this is crazy and the same thing with voice of our mother because there's such it's such crazy big ideas and and yeah i don't know where it comes from but i think that's the best feeling because you really it really is coming from your soul because i can't describe it i'm like i don't know i think it's insane this movie is nuts but it's what I had to say.

And I just love a movie impacting you and hitting you hard.

And whether you like it or not, like it got you like, you know, what really affected me a lot was the movie.

I love John Cassavetes and the movie husbands and husbands is a tough watch.

It's two hours and 25 minutes.

It goes on forever.

And in visiting it years later, you could see that also probably a much deeper understanding of it than you have even in the moment when you've watched it 500 times in editing.

It keeps getting deeper into it.

Well, I felt like some movies, especially nowadays, I think film is changing.

I think we're seeing that more and more.

And I don't like to think too objectively, but you want to hook an audience.

You want to get them in there.

And I just felt like I don't like, I clearly don't like tepid movies.

I like movies that really go for something.

And

And regardless of how we individually feel, how do you personally handle those comments and that, that kind of feedback? I think I was

always drawn to movies like that, that pushed the needle.

And like, like I love Aronofsky's mother.

Like I, you know what I mean? People hate that movie, but I, it spoke to me, you know what I mean? And, and, and people who hate it, like, I don't just, I get why you don't like it, but I, or 2001 when it was first made I'm not comparing myself to that but I'm just saying there's an instant reaction that I think is not the forever reaction anyway good or bad how many times you go back and watch a movie and you're like that does not hold up or wow that holds up so it's different each time you watch it and that's why we love re-watching movies because you're like oh my god I had no idea RoboCop is better today than it was in 1987 you know what I mean it happens all the time and So you can't be bogged down by it.

As an actor, even before as a filmmaker, I've heard everything.

And that is that person's right.

We're viewers.

What would you say is the biggest lesson learned coming out of this film that you think you're going to add into your repertoire, both either as actor or as a director in your next projects?

Mm.

There's no space for a bit of debate and a bit of nuance.

Um, I think I said it on the- on, on the podcast with Matt.

I think, I just think the whole obsession with manage it in, manage it out is just a bit...

There's so many factors that, like, play into it, you know what I mean? Could you go like...

There's loads of examples.

The one I keep on thinking is Vincent Kompany.

There was Everton Psycho.

We want all of us to decide what to do, right? Um, so that shift from, like, a single perspective or a close-knit perspective to a polyphonic, like, multivocal, collaborative perspective is, was, um, kind of really important to us.

Yeah, and I think the other element to add to that would be that one of the main topics of the fourth edition was climate, you know, or climate breakdown, and understanding the fact that our climate is breaking down, you know, much faster than what we thought or presumed, right? Uh, I think early on, people just thought climate change was gonna happen in, in future generations, but it's happening today, and it's impacting everyone right now.

And so we wanted to acknowledge that, you know, we're just three people of many who are in the design industry who are concerned about our future and acknowledging also the fact that our, our, our disciplines have contributed to these challenges, right? And so having more voices really mattered because it provided us an opportunity to, to, to, to listen and to read those comments that you have on the screen here, read those comments on the side and get other people's perspective.

And, you know, one of the original ideas also because of this open source Google Doc was to maybe iterate once a year or, you know, every six months or so.

You know, that hasn't happened because life happens, and we got busy and...

But I think the spirit is there.

And, you know, I also just wanna underscore too, just a quick side note, but I'll tie it back to this point, is that, um, the First Things First manifesto, no one owns it.

Is there any advice you have for students in how not to lose their values but also not lose a paycheck?

yeah for people who didn't pick up the first one like obviously there is an Everton theme to all this but it's not you know Ernest Everton chat is it I mean just for people who may miss the first one like you know aren't familiar with like the writing that you've done yourself down the years and certainly a lot of the old when skies are grey cast I mean what's the sort of flavour and the theme around it

Well, yeah, as I always say, it's not really about Everton, it's about Evertonians.

That would always be my take on it.

So when we moved, obviously, from Goodison to the new ground, it was like suddenly there was, for years, we'd written about Everton for years, and pretty much you get to a point where you've said all there is to say, but this was the first time it felt there was something new, because it was like, you know what, a once literally a once in a lifetime thing moving to a new ground and that's all the whole culture of the club has been sort of tipped on its head and i wanted to sort of without i've said it before without wanting to sound too um dramatic but uh you know chronicle that you know i mean take a snapshot of that and like reflect this change in the culture because i think it is a once in a lifetime event i Part of me, and this is reflected more in the second one, does think now I've seen the commercialisation and I think we might also be chronicling the end of something.

The end of the...

I could be wrong.

I could be like an old man shouting at clouds.

Well,