Director Emily Shir Segal on Grief and the Making of Her Biographical Short Film During Quarantine [Interview]

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing director Emily Shir Segal (I think it’s enough, isn’t it?) for the Vancouver Women in Film Festival, which began on March 4th, 2021, and runs through the 14th.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing director Emily Shir Segal (I think it’s enough, isn’t it?) for the Vancouver Women in Film Festival, which began on March 4th, 2021, and runs through the 14th. We discussed the process of making the film in quarantine at such a critical time and how the film was her way of processing the loss of her father. It’s a very personal, yet insightful, interview and I hope you’ll take the time to read it.

Here’s the full interview below:

1. Hi, Emily. Thank you for taking the time to answer a few of my questions. I just want to say before we begin that I think it’s enough, isn’t it? is truly a remarkable film — and additionally, it’s a beautiful tribute to your late father. What made you want to share such a deeply personal experience through an autobiographical lens? 

Hi Jared, thank you so much for your kind words. 

Initially I never thought of this film this way, or even as a film at all - I just really felt I needed to process everything that had happened, seeing as it was all very quick and sudden. Creating something new out of it was what came naturally to me. 

2. Were you at all hesitant to let an international audience experience your grief? How did you come to the conclusion that this is how you wanted to release it? 

I was, in a way, very unaware of how personal it was and of how much I was going to share before putting it out there. I think a lot of the time there are things that happen that you just need to let out into the world - most of the social networks we know are based on this very assumption. This time it was bigger, and it was first and foremost for myself. Talking about it out loud was incredibly difficult and yet very healing. I’m happy I didn’t quit comprehend the level of exposure before - I might’ve never done it otherwise. 

This week it will be a year since my father’s passing. I believe a huge part of my coming to terms with it, now, a year later - is thanks to the making of this short film, and even more for sharing my grief with the audience.

3. The decision to solely use archived footage of you and your father was particularly profound. What prompted you to edit the film this way rather than in a traditional interview-style format? 

Unfortunately when making this film - about two weeks to a month from my father’s passing - an Interview style format was not even possible. It didn’t make sense for me to photograph myself - it felt irrelevant. I felt that this old footage I found was an entire world on its own - it contained both our history and in a way our future. 

4. I know that you made the film during your father’s Shiva. For anyone who isn’t familiar with this Jewish tradition, can you briefly explain what it is? What did the process of sifting through old family archive footage look like for you during this time? 

Shiva (meaning literally “seven”, as in “seven days”) is a jewish, week-long mourning ceremony. It begins immediately after burial. The family stays together at their home, and other family members and friends come to visit throughout the seven days and give their condolences. It allows the family to mourn together, but also to accept comfort, to remember their loved one that had passed - to share stories and laugh. 

I am not a religious person at all - but I think that this ceremony is very intelligently thought out. It gives you a timeout that is confined in a specific time frame, known and respected - to sink in your sorrow, but also not be alone - to accept that laughter is part of sadness and vice versa. So when you go back into the world - you’ve reconciled with the concept of your loved one’s death just a little bit better. It makes it a tiny bit easier. 

Everyone’s mourning ritual is different. Unfortunately for us, when it happened - we didn’t have the comfort of family and friends coming to visit us at the Shiva - we were on our own. As this consolatory quality of the Shiva was taken away from us, we all tried to find our way to deal. My way was keeping busy - organising and cleaning. That’s when I found all of these old Mini DV and VHS tapes. It was very exciting to me - like finding a treasure box. 

I played the first tape I had found and I heard his voice again, calling my name, as if he was right near me. My Mom and my sister came down the stairs, shocked and confused, asking me - “Did I just hear?…”

5. As your first autobiographical short, what were some of the challenges that you were faced with (if any) compared to the making of Halayla (Tonight), your first narrative short film? 

I think I can’t even compare the two. For me, as much as I love narrative work, I struggle a lot with the writing process. Now, after the experience of this documentary short, I think it's because I tend to doubt and second-guess myself a lot. With documentary filmmaking I find that I can, in a way, skip to the next step - start doing before anything else, and then I have less time to self-doubt. 

Of course in narrative work, and specifically Halayla, the hardest thing and at the same time the most beautiful thing about it is working with other people - whether it is the actors, the DP, the editor, the producer - you expose yourself constantly during the making of the film, and as it passes through these other people the film itself changes too. It really is what I love about filmmaking. 

But here I had no partners - I carried it almost completely on my own. It was the first time I had this experience, both technically and mentally. It was a really good feeling knowing that I’ve made it entirely on my own - knowing that I can do it, I can count on me. Looking back it was a good decision. This film is my grieving process - and even though other people can help you on the way, you have to do most of the job on your own. 

6. Shifting gears a little bit, what has the festival circuit been like for filmmakers wanting to share their work during the pandemic? Has the process changed at all from when Halayla (Tonight) screened at over 20 festivals around the world?

Covid-19 has been quite a blow for film festivals. But I really do believe it is for the better. I deal with film festival distribution both with my personal films and in my work life. I think there’s something very old fashioned about a lot of film festivals, not always in a good way, mainly with the more prestigious ones, and COVID had made everyone re-think their ways. 

Personally now with “I think it’s enough, isn’t it?” and with the online screenings, I feel a lot more involved and more in touch both with the festivals and the viewers. 

7. In your mind, what does the industry look like post-COVID? Are films made the same? Do festivals make independent movies more accessible by keeping virtual screening options? 

Films are made the same. I work on sets as a camera assistant, and I don’t feel that there’s been a big change to the industry set-wise. I do believe that the kind of stories people will want to tell, and that the audience will want to see, will change a bit. But I think it moves in a circular motion ever since the beginning of film history, and history at all - when times are hard, people use art and cinema to showcase it, to process it, to let others know. And then it becomes too much - and people want to escape, so they look for the escapist kind of stories - whether they are magical and happy (like “Harry Potter”, in the beginning of the 2000’s) or dystopian tales, bigger and scarier than it is in real life (like the “Hunger Games” saga, about 12 years later).

As I said in regards to the question about my personal festival experience in this period, I really do believe it had changed festivals for the better.

Of course I look forward to the cinemas reopening and being able to watch films, and specifically my film, on a big screen, to be able to sense the audience’s emotions. But I do hope that film festivals will be able to maintain the good thing that happened during this time with online screenings, and keep being more accessible and more engaging.

8. I have a series of short questions that I always like to ask filmmakers. Rapid fire. Song you currently have on repeat? Favorite food to cook? Film you wish you had directed? 

“Pussy is God” by King Princess. Macaron cookies (for the moment, because I’m trying to perfect them. But it changes about once a month - I’m a big baking fan). “La La Land” of course. 

9. Finally, do you have any projects coming up that you’re particularly excited for and can give us a glimpse as to what we might expect? 

I have multiple projects actually. I’m working on two narrative projects - the first one is a short film, my final project in film school, and it’s a musical about an elderly lesbian couple and a relationship crisis. The second one is a feature length film (this will take a while to write…) based about my parents’ life – a young Israeli couple that moves to Italy in the mid-70’s facing life as a newlywed couple in a country flagged by political terrorism, living in a difficult economical situation. 

And finally I’ve just started work on a new documentary project, also short format, in a program that is managed by my University in collaboration with an Israeli TV channel. It is shaping up to be yet another personal, family film, but it's still too early to say. 

Emily Shir Segal (she/her), born in Israel in 1995. At 12 she moved to Italy with her family and spent there her teenage years. After she returned to Israel, she started her first year at Tel Aviv University, studying Film and Television.

Her first short film, Halayla (Tonight) was screened at over 20 festivals around the world and won awards for Best Performance, Best Directing, and Best Screenplay.

I think it’s enough, isn’t it? is her first autobiographical documentary film.

These days she is working on several new projects, such as a short LGBT musical film, her first narrative feature film, and a new short documentary film.