In Ifeyinwa Arinze’s short film August Visitor, a widowed mother invites a new suitor over for dinner. As the evening unfolds, we observe her meticulous preparation in the kitchen, a process that reveals how important the evening is to her. At the same time, we can sense that her children are less than enthusiastic about the guest, who is rudely smoking a cigarette upon his arrival, and whose presence threatens the intimacy of the family’s home. Made while Arinze was studying film at New York University a few years ago, August Visitor—which is now playing on the Criterion Channel—uses one of the director’s childhood memories as a way to explore family, culture, and intergenerational understanding. In this conversation, Arinze talks with me about the genesis of the project, her path from neuroscience to cinema, and her filmmaking influences.
Can you tell me what led you to filmmaking?
My path to filmmaking began with books. I was born in Nigeria and raised there by my mom, who was a widow. She was very much like, y’all need to have good grades and do really well in school. So we didn’t have cable at home for a while. A lot of times we would watch movies at home, but I also liked reading a lot. I was a really, really big reader. Then, eventually, when I came to the States for college, I discovered photography as my outlet. I was taking photos of my friends, flowers, and later people started paying me to do photo shoots and weddings, and to photograph families and do portraits. I was doing photography for a couple years as a hobby and a side gig, and then eventually started to feel its limits as a tool for expressing myself. I found that, with film, I could just play with so many elements. With photographs, I was limited to just the image.
I started to teach myself filmmaking, but then I realized, oh, you need community, because film is a lot more collaborative than photography, and the learning curve was just a lot steeper. I was thinking maybe this is something I could go to school for. I had studied neuroscience in undergrad. So, like a true scientist, I did my research. I spoke to a couple of people who had made the transition from science to film, and to quite a few engineers. And I was like: You know what? This might be a phase, so let me just test it out. I made a couple shorts with some friends and loved the process of making them, so . . .
That’s beautiful. What were the earliest things that you were watching when you were growing up? And how do you think that influenced your taste in movies?
I spent a lot of time with my grandma, and we would watch Nollywood movies on TV. I grew up on those movies. They are very entertaining and showed me film’s power to bring people together and entertain them, just like it did for my grandma and me. But I found that my personality and my style and my voice are very different. So the films I grew up watching were super melodramatic. A lot of times they had a moral message, like: a woman who does this gets punished. I don’t want to seem like I’m speaking down to these films, but I found that in my own work, I like to turn the volume down versus turning it up. I prefer a much quieter, subtler take on making films. When I realized I was interested in filmmaking, I discovered the work of the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. And then I also watched a lot of other East Asian filmmakers, including Lee Chang-dong. Even though the stakes are still pretty high in their films, I found the tone a lot quieter.
I know you mentioned Kore-eda, who is a great filmmaker. I just saw Nobody Knows.
Oh yeah, I love that film.
Can you tell us about your style and how you came to hone it?
Growing up, I found that I was very observant of my surroundings and would sometimes pay attention to things that people might not have been paying attention to. When I went to film school, I did a class exercise, and I had a professor who said, “Oh, I see, you’re very interested in behavior.” I just felt like somebody really saw me and my work, because the reason why I did neuroscience in undergrad was because I was interested in behavior. I’m very clued into details and making work that feels like you’re watching people behave, instead of work that shows people talking a lot and just saying everything that’s on their mind. So when I watched Lynne Ramsay’s film Ratcatcher and saw how she paid attention to details, I was like, that’s what I want to do. While I was at NYU I learned about the craft of writing and directing. We had to make a lot of work while in the program. I think watching a wide range and large volume of international films, and making a lot of work and paying attention to what I was drawn to, helped mold the style that I have today.
