How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
"After.Life" is Tisch alumna Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo's first feature film, and it is a testament to her talent as well as her perseverance and ambition. Given the talent attached to the film — it stars Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci — and some of the reviews it's been getting, it's hard to believe that NYU professors once tried to persuade her against making her first short film, "Pâté." But that film ended up winning 11 awards (including the NYU Wasserman Award), premiering at Sundance, and spreading her name throughout the film industry. Its success was born in struggle.
"You have to believe in what you do, have patience and persevere," Wojtowicz-Vosloo said.
As a child, she wanted to be a neurosurgeon or an orchestra conductor, but she knew early on that she didn't have the talent for it. Instead, she poured herself into art, which felt like the "natural progression" of her skills and sensibilities.
But there were always problems. Wojtowicz-Vosloo grew up in Poland, where connections are compulsory if you have any hope of attaining success in the film industry. She had none. So she came to Tisch.
So where did "After.Life" come from? According to the director, the film ponders no less than the meaning of life. That sounds like a tall order for any film, but in this case it makes sense. Though it contains clues, the film is unnervingly ambiguous about the characters' existential situation. After a fight with her boyfriend Paul (Justin Long), Anna (Christina Ricci) gets in a horrific car crash, waking up on a metal slab in a funeral home. The undertaker, Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson), tells Anna she is dead while he prepares her body and sews up her cut. After Eliot claims he has the gift of seeing corpses as they really are, Anna struggles to find out if she really is dead.
"I've always had a strange fascination with death [and was] naturally attracted to dark material," Wojtowicz-Vosloo said. The goal was to provoke life-and-death contemplation in viewers, pushing them to "really look into their own lives and the relations they're in."
So far, the strategy has been successful. "Many people come to me after the screening and say, 'The film makes me think,' 'The film makes me want to live, want to change my life,' " she said.
The film, with its daring, provocative conceit, wasn't easy to make. Like all aspects of her career thus far, it was a challenge she had to meet. One obstacle was that she had only 25 days to film 200 scenes.
"I made it harder on myself," she said. "I definitely took a longer route. But every day there were so many lessons; I think it was much more satisfying and was the best decision I've made."
Her career has only just begun, but it is already marked by triumphs of artistic vision over logistical difficulty. With any luck, it will continue in likewise fashion.
