SANDS: In Conversation with Oscar-Winning Production Designer James Price and Festival Director Ania Trzebiatowska

The fifth annual SANDS International Film Festival of St Andrews recently took place, with a great selection of international films and documentaries, and many acclaimed speakers, including Joe Russo and Charlie Kaufman. Along with attending various screenings and events, I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with James Price, the production designer for Poor Things (for which he won an Oscar) and Bugonia, along with festival director Ania Trzebiatowska.

The festival opened with John Carney’s Power Ballad, a film which celebrates the power and ability of music and art to produce a unique meaning for every person. It was a really fitting opener, in a similar way to last year’s The Ballad of Wallis Island. I spoke to festival director Ania, who is also a programmer for Sundance Film Festival, and asked her what it was like being one of the first people to watch these films without that inherent bias of having read reviews or having heard anything about them online.

ANIA: Sometimes you really have no idea what to expect. And that’s because it would be the world premiere for that film, that also means that it’s something that no one has seen, other than the film team. So, there’s a lot of pressure, for sure, in terms of what we end up selecting and why we do that, but it’s also very exciting, because you get to see films by filmmakers that you’ve been admiring for years, and see their new work, and it’s such a treat.

ANIA: There’s this whole thing of having an intuition about something that you’re watching that is special. There are films where you kind of know right away. I remember feeling this way about Power Ballad. I think that’s the kind of a film you can open a festival with - because it also has this sort of community uniting element to it. It doesn’t make you feel bad about the world as opposed to a lot of other films, which although they don’t do it intentionally, it sort of just happens. But also, it’s so well acted, so well written. It has a huge heart. And the music is so special, and it just works. And those films are so difficult to find.

I was also excited by the opportunity to talk to James Price, since Poor Things is one of my favourite films. I asked him about various aspects of his career, from working as an art designer on Paddington 2, to working with director Yorgos Lanthimos and his crew.

INTERVIEWER: I did a bit of background research. Until recently, I didn’t know that you worked on Paddington 2, one of the greatest films ever made. What was it like – because there’s such a magical and whimsical feel to the art style - what was it like working on something like that?

JAMES: For me, that movie was really special because I’d spent a long time doing art direction on TV shows, and it was the first time that I’d gone into an art department where I wasn’t the only art director, and there were three of us, and there was this big art department, and it was in the studio in Leavesden, which was the Warner Bros. studio where they’d made all the Harry Potters. So after working for, like, 15, 16, 17 years, I felt like that was my moment. If you said, where was the moment you feel like you were working in film - it was then, the day that we went in.

Since Paddington 2, Price has worked multiple times with acclaimed director Yorgos Lanthimos on Poor Things and Bugonia. Yorgos is known for finding a team and sticking with it – he has worked with Price along with composer Jerskin Fendrix, cinematographer Robbie Ryan, and Emma Stone for quite a few projects, including most recently the Squarespace Super Bowl commercial Unavailable. I asked him what it was like to be part of such a great team.

JAMES: Robbie and I were out for dinner one night with his [Yorgos] assistant camera technicians - Olga, who’s from New York, and there’s not many of them that can pull on film anymore. So, we were talking, and we were just going: “Oh, you know how annoying Yorgos is, because he’s always right”, and she said: “Yeah, that must be doubly hard for you two, because you two are used to being the best people in the room.” So, you feel like you’re in this... like Avengers Assembly. It’s like a supergroup. There are so many people who are just incredible at what they do. I find when I work for another director, I’m trying to push myself forward, whereas Yorgos brings the best actors, and collaborators, and he elevates you to another level.

What makes the production design of Poor Things so unique is how delicately constructed and lived in the world feels – James had a lot of great things to say about how the complexity of this world came to be, and how he is motivated to push himself creatively.

JAMES: It’s interesting because we [James and Shona Heath] were two brains, and then with all the art directors, art designers and everyone else, that made it a world. Our world that we live in is made up of many different brains, and even architectural styles. If it had been one production designer’s view on that, it wouldn’t have been as rich. It’s impossible. I think Yorgos probably realised that. When I got hired, I’d only ever designed The Nest as a production designer, Shona had not done product design on any films, but she’s a legend in the fashion world, and one of the leading designers in Britain. But he [Yorgos] takes risks the whole time. And that’s how you get new stuff, something that’s unique… and you don’t carry on hitting your head against the wall and doing what everyone else is doing.

JAMES: We’re at a moment now in cinema which I feel is similar to the moment where painting was a deep birth of photography. You don’t really need to paint photographically anymore. So that’s when painting took on a new meaning... it went to a new place. We’re in the birth of the AI age, so you can create movies that are very photorealistic, create worlds without actually really building stuff. I feel like the evolution of film has to go to a new place, and that’s what I think we’re collectively, maybe not consciously trying to do, that’s where I definitely think we should be going. If it’s with Yorgos, if he asks me to do another movie, then I will be pushing to go to a different place - because it’s got to be an evolution. Otherwise, there’s no point to making movies, right? Society has now unlocked this thing of AI, now we have to evolve to be like... come on, raise your game. You know, you have to be better than that.

SANDS was eye-opening for me and getting to hear about film from both the production process to the curatorial aspect at the other end was really insightful and it made me reflect on how I view film as a medium. Huge thanks to both Ania and James. The weekend celebrated the art form in a wonderful way and reminded me why I love it so much.

At the end of our conversation, Ania talked about the SANDS curation process, working with students to help create the programme. The way she talked about the team’s passion for film really resonated with me.

ANIA: 6 out of 10 films would be curated with student curators. So that means my whole approach to this changes, because I get to work with young people who have never seen these films before. It’s just a really good reminder of why I love what I do, because hearing them talk about these films and arguing about them and then also convincing each other that they’re wrong about something – it’s a really beautiful process and I think it’s just a very good reminder of why, offering that kind of opportunity to someone, when they’re young, is important. That is something I wish someone had done for me, which is, you know, part of the ethos around here.