Cruel Story of Youth: Rebekah Sherman-Myntti & KJ Rothweiler on Salamander Days
The directing duo and Simone Films masterminds discuss collaborative filmmaking, Terrence Malick and why you need to see Salamander Days projected on film
While in town for the New York premiere of The All Golden at Spectacle, Bleeding Edge stopped by Simone Films/The Ion Pack headquarters to chat with Salamander Days directors Rebekah Sherman-Myntti & KJ Rothweiler. With the conception of the movie dating back to 2017 and the theatrical tour still about in 2024, you’d think they’d be over talking about it, but they still had a great deal of enthusiasm to discuss its production, their origins as a duo in film school and general detours of cinephilia.
Just as Salamander Days was a true team effort, this was Bleeding Edge’s first ever “group” interview, with questions from Ethan Vestby, Alan Jones, Nate Wilson and Lea Rose Sebastianis.
Ethan Vestby: So just this is like the most basic question imaginable. Can you talk about how you met? And when you kind of instantly hit it off?
KJ Rothweiler: Yeah, Rebekah was directly in front of me in the registration line at Sarah Lawrence College in 2009. And basically, you had to like sign up for all these classes, film classes, like you had to like get accepted into them. There was a waitlist.
Rebekah Sherman-Myntti: You had to physically go to the door of each professor's office and write your name, just in order to-
KJR: I would always see Rebekah, like, signing up just before me so I had this like weird teenage thing where I thought you hated or didn’t like me or something.
RSM: So we did end up in some of the same film classes and this is 2009 and we were 18 and burning CDs for each other... Yeah actually the burning of the CDs, I don't think we've actually ever said that but that was the first moment where we were like, “oh, there's a simpatico taste thing.” And then—
KJR: We were watching like Brakhage, Phil Solomon and all that jazz. We were like, super Anthology Film Archives.
Nate Wilson: Do you feel like you had similar tastes or like attraction to those movies at the time?
RSM: Definitely. I think there was an interesting kind of exchange of tastes too, because at that age you're still very much developing your taste. I think that I was aware of certain film world realms that KJ maybe didn't know so much about and vice versa. Like I was so French New Wave-pilled.
KJR: Which I at that point did not give a fuck about [laughs].
RSM: And you at that point were very obsessed with David Lynch.
KJR: The shorts, the early stuff [laughs]. I mean, you'll see this in the movie that there's a deep experimental background in our work. Yeah, just like how we first learned about movies was from history classes and experimental film classes, not production ones.
RSM: And I had a few teachers who would explain a 16 millimeter camera and just tell you to go shoot stuff.
EV: So what was the impetus of Salamander Days? It was like more personal conversations the two of you have had about like your younger years?
RSM: I think pretty much that year, that first year of school, that was when we made an agreement that we eventually wanted to make a movie and I don't even think we really knew about co-directing. I don't think that was something that we thought about. I went to school very clearly, knowing that I wanted to make films. Like I've been writing “A Rebekah Production” over and over on paper since I was three years old and like “A film by Rebekah”. But then I think similarly, KJ came into school, knowing that he wanted to make movies, music...
KJR: I always had this idea that I was going to be like a musician until I was 30. And I was like, once I hit like, 35, then I'll start doing film [laughs].
RSM: I do think it is a an old person’s sport — filmmaking.
Alan Jones: Did you always work together then?
RSM: Yes, in some capacity.
EV: So what does the division of labor look like on set with you two onset?
RSM: For our movie in particular or in general?
Ethan Vestby: For Salamander Days?
KJR: I think Rebekah was deeply involved with everybody on screen, all the actors, the school, the teachers, it was her school that she went to, she was like, interfacing with everything that was happening in front of the camera. I feel like I was talking to Bart [Cortright, Director of Photography] about camera stuff.
RSM: I think we were aligned on what we wanted the movie to look and feel like, but then in terms of how do you actually communicate those ideas on set —we were working with first-time actors, many of whom were 15 or 16 years old, and kind of like, actually, surprisingly, very comfortable in front of the camera, but still, maybe a bit unsure of themselves. I think that probably became more of my responsibility. KJ was more gear.
KJR: Bart brought 20 foot rails, I mean, I was just like, so like, production pilled, trying to make it look like something elevated from what you normally would perceive as like a low budget indie, like, I wanted it to be elevated. I was obsessed with Knight of Cups at the time and wanted it to be like late Malick.
RSM: Yeah, I think we both were wanting to reject a lot of the styles of independent film that we had seen and I'm not saying that in a derogatory or like knocking it kind of way. But I think so much of what we’d seen up until that point was made by people who were our age was like handheld and shaky (laughs). And I think that for both of us, we really wanted it to feel as cinematic as that time period felt for both of us. This film in a lot of ways was our film school. And I think that we were just really trying to try everything in the making of it.
KJR: You can see that yeah, we're clearly trying out everything.
RSM: But I think that, luckily, in our partnership, I think we both approached the directing of that movie with tremendous openness. And I think that that level of openness to, for example, new kids coming to the set who had heard we were filming a movie, and they wanted to be in it — KJ and I were very aligned in terms of being experimental and open to everyone who wanted to be involved.
KJR: Our crossover was just not being rigid about anything. Yeah, just letting it happen sort of Zen approach.
RSM: It's hard to articulate because I think it flows pretty naturally. But I think that also just comes from knowing someone pretty intensely.
EV: Speaking of knowing someone intensely, what was Curtis Everett Pawley [co-host of The Ion Pod and front man of The Life]’s involvement with the music? Did you know that from the very beginning that he was going to be involved?
KJR: Yeah, there was a moment where I was like, because I also make like weird ambient music and I was like, “Maybe I should just make it myself” but Curtis is much more talented than me [laughs].
RSM: You know, the first day of school when I met KJ, I also met Curtis because they were roommates. And so like, to me, they've always been kind of a duo. So it's hilarious that like, I say, sometimes, that I listened to The Ion Pack for like a decade before it ever existed just from falling asleep in their room and hearing them talk until 8 in the morning [laughs]. And so it was very, very obvious and natural to include him and I don't even think we really like had much of a discussion. It was just like, we're gonna do this thing and we're gonna involve all the people who are our best friends. It was a very collaborative process and I think Curtis was always naturally going to be part of it. He even came to set with us, he was in charge of, like, babysitting the teenagers.
NW: Like, What's the timeframe? How old were you when you started?
RSM: So we left New York, to like, go save money and like, write the script and just kind of process what we wanted to do when we were 25. And then I think we started shooting when we were 27.
AJ: What year was that?
RSM: 2018? Yeah, we left 2017. But we started shooting 2018. And then we shot again in 2019.
NW: You’ve occasionally mentioned this before. But to be clear, where did you leave to go? Where did you leave?
KJR: To the woods in Pennsylvania, my parents have a cabin there. And we were I mean, we had already at that point spent like seven or eight years in New York, paying New York rent and we were just watching all our friends not make movies because they have to afford living here.
RSM: I had a full time job which I mean, I think in a lot of ways was boot camp for a lot of the skills that you bring to filmmaking but in terms of free time, and having the ability to actually be creative and work on the things you want to work on, it was really difficult. So to us, it was very much like a conscious decision. Like, if we don’t leave, then we're not going to do this thing that we've always said we wanted to do and then we'll be distraught and disappointed in ourselves. It was something that we had talked about for so long. And I won't speak for you, KJ, but I personally really dislike saying I'm going to do something and then not following through on it.
NW: Did you did you feel the pressure of like a feature? Like we have to do this, we have to make the feature?
RSM: I think we had like a “Go big or go home” kind of attitude.
KJR: Leaving New York was such a big thing, because we were the type of people like “Oh, we're not leaving for any vacation. We don't want to go anywhere ever”. So leaving to live somewhere else was such a big deal. Yeah, like we weren't leaving for years to make a short, like we were waiting for years to hopefully make a feature
Lea Rose Sebastianis: But what did that time in Pennsylvania look like like, how did you spend your days? What was like the writing-the-script process?
RSM: Yeah, there were a lot of discussions and like a lot of it was memory based discussions, right? KJ is much more of a night owl so our working hours were a bit different.
KJR: We would like go on really long walks and like, just like tell stories from our high school years. And there were two particular stories, one of Rebekah’s and one of mine, that like seemed worth exploring, that are very abstractly in the movie. I think there was a point at which there was a movie very distinctly about those things, but it felt wrong to kind of try to actually tackle those things. They're just sort of in the DNA of the thing.
RSM: I think it was the first time at least for me personally, since college, where I felt like I had a breather to actually sink into other artist's work. Like when you’re young and in New York and trying to keep your head above water as like a 23 year old, it's hard to sometimes consume the art that you want to consume at the level you want to consume it. And so it was also a lot of reading and watching movies, and it's funny, like some of the movies that we were watching at the time in that cabin, kind of while also simultaneously losing our minds, you can look at our movie now and see some of those influences kind of baked in. I don't think there was ever like a conscious giving Bart, our DP, a PDF with references — that’s not something we ever do.
KJR: Music a big influence on me when I was out there. It's weird that when you're in New York, you have to walk around with headphones on or I have my car here. So I often times listen to music in my car, but it's kind of hard to really sink into music when you're in the city, like an album, and like a long form. And I was just like, laying in front of my record player and listening. I'm a weird collector of bizarre ambient records. And I think, like ambient music feels to me like what I maybe brought to the set, or like to when we were writing.
AJ: I was just gonna ask about the Knight of Cups influences. It's not the go-to Malick for most people?
KJR: It’s my go-to [laughs]. I think it's just a really free movie. It's just like really lyrical. I think even the way it's like, using language. It's a bizarre movie, because there was a very distinct script for that movie that only really manifests in voiceover. But when you're hearing people talk, like the sound mix will kind of like cut them out and a Burial track will come in. And like a very old track will come in. It's very psychedelic the way he's processing feelings and memories and stuff. And I think just at least for me, that was just like something I really wanted to do. Knight of Cups for some reason, just really smacked me in the face.
EV: I love that part where Bale's driving through downtown Los Angeles, and they're playing this ambient track that just samples Major Briggs’ dream monologue from Twin Peaks.
KJR: Yeah, that’s Biosphere. It's one of my favorite records ever. Which is also crazy to like use that as a piece of score but then that piece of score has a sample from like another piece of media and it’s just fucking me up so bad.
NW: It’s kind of like Malick’s only modern movie too. Obviously Song to Song is, and To the Wonder, but those movies are even kind of going for nostalgia for like America, this one is like-
KJT: It feels like an episode of Entourage or something [laughs]. Honestly, that’s what we were watching in the cabin.
EV: We should mention there’s a signed photo of Jeremy Piven in the office.
RSM: We want to put him in something [laughs].
EV: And can you talk about the importance of seeing this movie projected on film?
RSM: Actually, can I just add something to what you said, quickly backtracking about Malick? And I think what's interesting about the movie is there's completely that influence woven throughout and you can really tangibly feel it and then I think there's also that influence colliding with a documentary one. A true hybrid.
KJR: Very Frederick Wiseman-core.
RSM: Yeah.
KJR: It’s a really weird hybrid of influences.
RSM: I think it's because it's a co-directed thing. I think that's what happened.
NW: We're coining a term of using Wiseman-core.
KJR: Yeah. We were watching High School in the cabin.
RSM: But to answer that question, well, so originally being like the naive, young filmmakers that we were, we thought that we wanted to shoot the movie on film. Not really understanding the cost of that and what that actually meant. Because the film was shot in Rochester, New York, which is the home of Kodak and George Eastman and that's also where I grew up. Going to the George Eastman House to watch movies as a kid it was like “Kodak!” and “film!" was like such a thing and so KJ was also really obsessed with the idea of shooting on film. Then we connected with like the budget required to shoot on film and also like the amount of film we'd need in order to keep the cameras running to work with first time actors. It was just not tenable.
KJR: Yeah, it was like double, triple our entire budget.
AJ: I was just gonna interject to say that I always think it's crazy that like when Wiseman was in his early days making movies and stuff it's like, they thought 16mm was so freeing because you could just keep going and because the handheld cameras and at that time it was like the cheapest thing you could do.
KJR: Yeah, 16mm was like old digital [laughs].
NW: It was just so much cheaper and easier to process.
KJR: Yeah. Once we got hip to the fact that was going to be way too expensive and around that same time, we saw The Human Surge, which I was obsessed with. And I had a Blackmagic Pocket like the one with the 16 millimeter sensor which I got for like 500 bucks. And I remember that I was like, however they made this movie looks so cool. And it looked like it was shot on film, but it was shot on a Blackmagic Pocket and then they did a film out to 16 and then rescanned it. So they were essentially like photocopying the 16 millimeter censored digital footage and, you know, doing a film-out and then rescanning that it's like this weird photocopied version of itself, which ended up looking really cool. And I was like, I haven't seen that with any movie with a 35. Like, we should shoot something with a 35 millimeter sensor and do a film-out and then rescan it back. And I mean, to your question about like, is it like, why is it important to be seen that way? I have this weird thing where I always like things that feel naturally digital and go through a sort of no-analog process. Just they have like a cold quality to them. I mean, there's a million different like analog fetishists, but I’m really experienced so I was making ambient music and like I'd make everything in Ableton. And I would always be like, I've listened back to what I’d made in Ableton, and it sounds so computer-y. But then I got it mastered through like tape or something, I was like, oh, now I like it. There was an element of it that I wanted to bring that to the movie where it was, like, we obviously shot this on all these digital cameras, but there's going to be something nice, there's gonna be a nice human quality, if we put it through some analog process. And the when we first got the film-out back, and we screened it at The Roxy and we were like, holy shit, it’s just like, just so much better.
RSM: The movie is very experiential. That element very much adds to the feeling of the movie. It kind of sounds corny, but it's how it's been described to me multiple times— the movie kind of washes over you. That is deeply felt especially through that format more so than any other.
KJR: There's also a lot of animation, like the movies kind of like multi-format, there's like 8k, 5k footage, but there's also these like, kind of like lower-res animations that our friend Tracy Todd did. And like when stuff’s multi-format, I always want to like put some sort of glue over everything to make it unified to itself. Yeah, so it just needed or at least I hoped with a film-out that would like, smooth some of that stuff over, and I think it did.
NW: It's very cool that you're not trying to pretend that you shot it on film. You're not going for a film look here.
KJR: People are fooled though. In London and Berlin, people were like it looks so beautiful on film and we were like we didn’t shoot it on film.
AJ: I was just gonna ask, I guess you've been working on this since 2017. So I mean, that's a long time. What does it feel like coming to the end of that joy, and actually putting it out into the world?
KJR: It feels good. It feels like the first I mean, like in the past two weeks is the first time I've personally felt like oh, I do want to make another movie. I've not felt that way nor have I been able to look forward since very recently, since just since like, there's been a handful people have actually seen it and engaged with it. Now I want to like prove myself in some other way. Yeah, but I didn't feel that way until two weeks ago.
RSM: I think when you when you live inside something for so long, it's really hard to see it clearly. And so I mean, a lot of filmmaker friends I speak to, like, everyone has a very complicated relationship to their first movie. And like, I certainly have one to this. And so I think it's been a really, really positive experience to kind of have this next phase be happening, where it's out in the world, and people can like it or dislike it. And I think that life feels very fresh and interesting and new to us. So I think that that's been really, really positive. Also just going on the road with it has been fascinating and so kind of reassuring that there's still audiences like in Berlin, for example, for like, weirdo independent cinema. Yeah, I think there's like a great interest, especially in what's coming out of New York right now, which I think is cool.
EV: Maybe this will be the final question, have people around the age of the characters in the film, have you talked to anyone who's seen at that age and gotten any real major takeaways from that?
KJR: It's interesting, it feels like the majority of the people who respond positively or I don't know, in some way constructively about the movie, always, some tend to seem like, closer to our age, or like late 20s. And because we always thought like it was, oh, this is a movie for high school kids that reflects their experience in some visceral way.
RSM: I think it's actually like, the people who are most in touch with nostalgia and memories surrounding that time period, I think are the ones who are responding in the most intense way. I think that's also because it deals with and it kind of shows students grappling with these larger life questions. And I think that, as an older person watching that, like those are also questions that you are dealing with in maybe a more tangible and immediate way. And so I think it makes sense that it's resonating with the older crowd.
KJR: It's so surprising to me, because the movie, I think it went through a lot of different edits. And like there was an edit of the movie at one point that was just very straightforward, sort of very accessible, pop sensibility. And the resulting movie that we ended up with his very uncompromising and, like, pretty challenging and experimental, which I thought would appeal to younger people. Because like, when I was younger, I was watching like, Brakhage, so I was like some 19 year old will probably fuck with this, but and I think they do. I think maybe zoomers are like, maybe the generation that is 19 now or 20. has a different sensibility about what good art is, and I think maybe we made a movie that's more for millennials or boomers.
EV: Not Gen X?
KJR: Yeah, Mike Bilandic likes it. [laughs]
RSM: I think also going back to your question — I think there's a purity to your first movie, to a first film. I personally love to look at filmmakers’ very, very early work, because it’s really cool to see how some of the subject matter or the topics or the questions or the themes that they're tackling, or at least like attempting to tackle, often failing at, but are exploring in their early work is stuff that they revisit down the line. And so I think for me and KJ, that's definitely true for both of us that these are themes that I think we'll carry on in our own individual work as we go further and further down the path and age.
KJR: I have no plans on making any movies that are not about high school at all. [laughs]
RSM: Yeah, we'll see when they talk to us again in 10 years.
Join us for the Canadian premiere of Salamander Days on 35mm at Innis Town Hall on February 24th.