Wilson in the frame

AMAZING was how writer-director Juanita Wilson described her recent triumph at the IFTAs, when her film As If I Am Not There won the Best Script, Best Director and Best Film awards.

“It’s lovely to be honoured by your peers in your own country, and I think it’s really important that when you bring a piece of work like this home that it’s appreciated, and that makes me very proud.”

Wilson has every reason to feel proud. As If I Am Not There is a superb film which portrays the harrowing experience of Samira, a young Muslim schoolteacher captured during the Bosnian War, who is forced to endure a dehumanising experience in a ‘rape room’. The film features a remarkable performance from Natasa Petrovic in the lead role.

“Natasa was brilliant,” Wilson says. “She was so young, and she was kind of frightened of it all, and I was reassuring her even though I’d never made a feature film before either … (laughs). So were kind of together in it, took each other by the hand and made that journey together, which was lovely. For someone so young, she’s amazingly intuitive. She was incredibly composed, and strong in herself, but open to everything we threw at her, which is a lovely combination. I think she’ll get some great roles, I think she deserves it.”

Despite the subject matter, which was adapted from Slavenka Drakulic’s novel based on the stories of the women who testified to Bosnia War atrocities at the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague, the film is remarkably restrained in its depiction of Samira’s brutal treatment.

“Well, we didn’t want to do anything that was voyeuristic, obviously,” says Wilson. “And that was a real challenge, because if you get that rape scene wrong, if you gloss over it, you’ve lost the whole film. So it had to feel true and authentic, but I really wanted it to be from Samira’s perspective. All you’re really looking at is the emotion on her face, and then what she tries to do to block it out, the whole out-of-body experience which gives the book and the film its title.

“In editing, we looked at maybe making that scene shorter, but I felt that because we only go there once, it should be strong and real, and then I won’t ask the audience to sit through it again. But it’s a very pedestrianised scene, it’s almost normal — the soldiers just stroll into the room, it’s banal, workmanlike. Which makes it twice as chilling, I think.”

So chilling is that scene, and others besides, that it’s difficult, when we sit down to conduct the interview in the plush environs of The Residence on Dublin’s Stephen’s Green, to link the elegant and softly spoken woman with the radiant smile to the creator of what is ultimately an uplifting but undeniably grim tale reminiscent of Primo Levi’s novels about surviving the Nazi concentration camps.

Then again, Wilson’s first name tends to wrong-foot people’s expectations on a regular basis. “My father called me Juanita, I think he wanted to give me something a little bit different. I already had an uncle called Juan, so there was already a precedent there. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse …

“It’s funny, when we were ringing Macedonia at first, to look at the possibility of producing over there, (producer) Natalie Lichtenthaeler — she’s German-French, but living here and married to an Irishman — would say, ‘It’s Natalie Lichtenthaeler and Juanita Wilson — from Ireland.’ And the Macedonians were going, ‘Erm, what?’ (laughs).”

Married to producer James Flynn (The Tudors, Inside I’m Dancing), Wilson is based in Wicklow, where the couple have two children, Alex and Anna.

“I certainly felt very strongly for the subject matter because of my own experience of being a parent,” she says. Being a mother also complicated the making of the film, which apart from the opening scenes set in Sarajevo, was for the most part shot in Macedonia. “In terms of going out to Macedonia and shooting for that length of time (almost a year, on and off) and being away from my own kids, that was very tricky, I have to say. It was something, actually, that I never imagined that I’d be able to do at a certain point.”

It helped hugely that husband James was a producer on the project.

“It’s fantastic,” she says, “I’m just so lucky. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without James, he’s been so supportive. Even with my decision to try directing in the first place, he believed in The Door so fully (Wilson’s short film which was nominated for an Oscar last year), and believed in me, and likewise with As If I Am Not There. He read the book, and he cried too, and he understood completely what we were trying to do. He really has both qualities — he has a fantastic business mind, which is great, but he also understands cinema.

“I have to say,” she adds, “producers have the toughest job of all, because it’s a thankless job, and all they get to do is solve problems all day long, they get very little glory. But in a way they hold the future of the industry in their hands, because if they’re strong and supportive then they’re the people who get things made. So I’m blessed with James.”

Given that As If I An Not There is Wilson’s first feature length film, the IFTAs were something of a surreal experience.

“We were so happy going to the IFTAs, because we had seven nominations in total, which is really fantastic for an independent film, and you hope out of that many, you’ll be called up at some point. But to get the three — Best Script, Director and Film — well, I was pleased for my first feature to get the first two awards, and I never would have expected to get both. But then, Best Film is wonderful for all the people who worked on it. For Tim [Fleming] the cinematographer, and Nathan [Nugent] the editor, and for James and Natalie, who worked so hard to make the whole thing happen. Best Film reflects everybody’s work, and I still can’t believe it, to be honest, I’m still floating on a cloud.”

“Rookie writer-director Juanita Wilson’s cinematic smarts ensure the film speaks forcefully and intelligently” declared the Hollywood bible Variety in its verdict, and “should turn Wilson into a name to watch.” Wilson is not content to rest on her laurels.

“At the moment I’m almost — hopefully! — finished a first draft of another adaptation,” she says, “this time an American book, called The Ones You Do by Daniel Woodrell, the author of Winter’s Bone. It’s a much earlier work than Winter’s Bone, so it’s much warmer, it’s very charming and full of smart dialogue and amazing characters who are all clinging on to society by their fingernails. It’s really lovely, and it’s a deliberate choice by me to do something very different so that I don’t just keeping going in the one direction, because I still have so much to learn.”

* As If I Am Not There goes on nationwide release from March 4.