NAPLES INTERNATIONAL FF INTERVIEWS: Lanie Zipoy talks about her film, THE SUBJECT

Lanie Zipoy’s THE SUBJECT, which recently screened at the Naples International Film Festival, has been a legitimate hit on the regional film festival circuit, winning multiple awards, and for good reason, I believe. The drama is about a successful white documentary filmmaker dealing with the fallout from his previous film, which caught the murder of a Black teen on tape. Now, while he shoots a new doc series for a major TV network, someone videotapes his every move, threatening his idyllic life.

AMERICAN PIE and Orange is the New Black’s Jason Biggs plays that documentarian and brings the assuredness of someone who has been in the Hollywood machine since he was a child to finding the ease that some people glide through what is tricky terrain for most everyone else to navigate. However, THE SUBJECT takes that young, successful director through a wringer fraught with moral questions that may strip him of everything he has achieved and holds dear. In fact, what haunts him may very well be a “who” and that person may even demand he pay the ultimate price for the questionable decision that “made” his career.

In the interview (which follows a few interviews I have done with Lanie for various outlets as the film has screened at the Bentonville Film Festival, the Harlem International Film Festival, and now NIFF, among others), we talk about how the script for the film found its way to Zipoy, and why the story stuck with her and infiltrated her dreams to the point she needed to make the film. We discuss the director/writer working relationship on an indie film – at least on this one, as well as Jason Biggs’ involvement in the film and participation beyond just playing a role to being a more supportive asset than just being a top lining star. We also have fun commiserating about the actor on set who keeps asking “Why?” until you question your own existence. Finally, we talk about how Lanie and the cast went about trying to “stick the landing” in the final scene.