-Who is Brie Electra?

A young woman making sense of the world through filmmaking. I direct, write, produce, act, and work in the art department. I have a background in fine arts and have been a performer and an artist in many forms for my entire life. I’ve been a “filmmaker” for 5 years now, and my mission these days is just to write, write, write… write some more, make a feature film, make another, grow, change, build on my skills, and collaborate with great minds. Oh, and I’m from a tiny town in Texas, now based primarily in Los Angeles. 

-Do you remember the exact moment you fell in love with cinema?

Yes. I used to make only still images… I would paint, create large-scale murals, and get hired to shoot photographs at concerts. The moment I fell in love with cinema was the moment I realized that I could expand picture-making to 24 frames per second. That meant more of what I love, and more of creating an immersive experience for the picture viewer. It was about re-imagining what I myself experienced when shooting concerts: an inseparable relationship between the camera, the subject, the action, and the viewer. When making my films, I can re-create and re-interpret the feeling of a time and place and show it to you through my lens of the world. When that is achieved well, and you know you’re experiencing someone else’s dream or reality re-imagined, you just know it. There are no words for it. 

-Tell us about your project “Doll Parts”.

Doll Parts was a tricky project to make because I played the lead as well as directed, and my co-lead Deanna Chukes and I basically improvved the whole thing. I brought my ideas, and since she’s a writer as well as an actress she understood the assignment. Danny Tran, who played all the “Toxic Men”, is a dancer and an actor, and was also wonderful all on his own without a script. My cinematographer Abery Saulsberry and I were working out lighting and blocking in real time which allowed for several sudden and exciting ideas to unfold that we got to execute immediately. We shot and edited it in two days. 

The story is important to me because it is a collage of several ideas (and ex-partners) from over the years combined to create a short experience that embodies some of the fears and desires that I feel are rarely discussed. Doll represents more of an idea than a character: she is the idea that we take on labels from others and lose ourselves as nuanced and unique individuals. It is a cautionary tale about conforming to another person’s ideas of who you are, and in turn, losing who you are and finding yourself way off center. I hope that this film encourages people to evaluate their close relationships, their boundaries, their overall sense of self-worth, and to listen to their best friends when it comes to dating! Sometimes they know you, and know best. 

-Which Director inspires you the most?

Agnes Varda. She carved her own path in a male-dominated industry in the 1950s with a voice that was distinctly poetic and curious. Her sensitivity toward everyday people and moments is aspirational. Her work is born out of a blend of documentary and fiction, with specific attention to female interiority, which is a similar recipe to what I use in my work. She never stopped evolving and trying new things until the very end – each commercial, film, and video that she made blows me away and keeps me wondering what will happen next. Her work is so unpredictable and fabulous. She lived as an artist for almost a century, which is also an amazing feat, and overall she seemed like a happy, energetic woman who worked alongside many great collaborators. 

-What do you dislike about the world and what would you change?

I dislike very much how powerless people feel today. I wish I could meet with every single person and have a conversation with them about what would make them feel most powerful, and then formulate an actionable plan for each person to achieve that. We all unfortunately have to go on that path alone… except sometimes you see a great film and you walk out of the theater feeling a few inches taller and ready to take on the world. 

-How do you imagine cinema in 100 years?

I believe in the future there will be A.I. films and human-made films, and they will be separated by the fact that the A.I. films are customized to the viewer and the human-made films aren’t. I mean, the human-made films will definitely have the benefit of meticulous data collection to be able to understand what the audiences want and what the market demands (much like we have today, but with advancements in tech and in greater detail). Still, I don’t think science and math can predict art – so only time will tell what the moment’s artists produce. Maybe they’ll make movies in 10D. I hope my kids and my kids’ kids will make movies, too.

-What is your impression of WILD FILMMAKER?

I appreciate how active Wild Filmmaker is out in the world as well as online! It definitely seems like the folks at Wild Filmmaker know how to love and support the film community.