Svitlana Zavialova never studied deconstructionism, but her short indie vampire dystopian film Milk & Water, currently being shot in Shenzhen, uses this ideology. It’s a revisionist version of a vampire love triangle. Immortality changes from a power to a curse.
“Our vampires are vegetarians,” says Anastasia Lebedeva, the film’s designer and producer, as she scrolls through pictures of the film’s costumes – almost monochromatic, complex pieces with lots of leather and metal facets. “They drink milk since they have lost the taste for blood,” she continues, partially explaining the movie title.
The plot follows the love story of a vampire named Jane and her witch girlfriend Vanessa. All’s well until Vanessa catches Jane cheating on her with a man. Vanessa casts a spell on Jane to strip her of her vampire powers. Serendipitously, she enacts the enchantment during a planet parade, which somehow warps the spell to make all the vampires in the world lose their powers – except for their immortality.
In addition to design and production, Lebedeva also acts in the film. Her character is the only non-magical personality, nerdy girl Kate. Kate spends the beginning of the movie researching the disappearance of her grandfather (Jane’s paramour), which later leads her to Jane and Vanessa.
“It’s going to be the opposite of [other vampire movies] in that the drama’s gone,” says Zavialova, the film’s screenwriter and director, in a phone interview. I asked myself, ‘How will vampires see the world if they’ve seen its history firsthand?’ Life like that would be flavorless, like milk and water.”
Though the story occurs in a world of vampires and witches, the movie privileges basic human themes of loss, fidelity and a search for truth over its more magical elements. “We show options of reality. We have to [use] human categories. Our storyline is human, but I wouldn’t say everyone could relate,” says Zavialova.
Heavily influenced by Jean Paul Gaultier’s costumes in The Fifth Element, both Zavialova and Lebedeva planned the film to be a fashion project as well. Detailed outfits combined with a minimalistic background and 3-D design help to create the alternate world portrayed in Milk & Water.
“Fashion adds details. There are things that can be said by dialogue, but fashion is something that completes the characters,” says Zavialova.
The international production crew of Milk & Water wanted to create a “neo-realist cityscape,” as Lebedeva puts it. “Shenzhen… has a lot of empty spaces and modern architecture… There is no blend with past and future [here]. There is now and future.”
So far, locals have been receptive to helping with the project. “We spent quite a while in preproduction asking restaurants and business owners for permission. Some are even shutting down temporarily for us to use the venue,” notes Zavialova.
The crew of artists, designers and technicians behind Milk & Water live and work in China. However, the country influenced the project’s creation more than being integral to some aspect of the plot. Zavialova has lived in many cities around the world, including New York and Los Angeles, but appreciates how living in China has particularly affected this project. “It seems to be a great place to create here. In China, there is more of a united consciousness. It makes everyone be able to help each other,” she says.
She cites how the films score was composed by local musician Greg Merrell as an example. “What I was thinking picture-wise, somehow he transformed into the music. Somehow we were synchronized. I think we are all being influenced in a good way into this Chinese kind of structure.”
While the film does have men involved in the production – including Denys Leontyev, a special effects supervisor with 10 years of experience in big budget films in Moscow – the scriptwriting, directing and most of the actors are all women. It’s not an overtly feminist work, but will probably have strong feminist appeal.
After wrapping at the end of December, Milk & Water will be entered in several film festivals, including the New York International Independent Film Festival, Future Shorts Film Festival and the Hong Kong Film Festival.
// Zavialova and Levedeva are still open to adding investors to their team and can be contacted at leforma@gmail.com
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