By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Writer/director Avalon Fast made an attention-grabbing debut with their first feature HONEYCOMB, shot on a microbudget when they were just 19. They have now followed it up with the award-winning CAMP, which they discuss below with RUE MORGUE.
CAMP, which Fast launched in 2022 at the Fantasia International Film Festival’s Frontières Market (where they told us about it here), arrives on VOD tomorrow, July 10 following festival play (including Fantastic Fest, where it won the Next Wave Best Feature Award). It’s also in the midst of select theatrical bookings; see details of upcoming screenings at the end of this article. Zola Grimmer stars as Emily, a girl afflicted with guilt over a pair of tragic deaths in her past. In an attempt to ease her psyche, she takes a job at a woodsy summer camp for troubled youths, where she’s taken under the wing of her fellow female counselors—and introduced to the magical rituals they perform. Rife with dreamy, surreal passages, CAMP is an impressive step forward as a filmmaker for Fast, who has also been busy as an actor in movies like Alice Maio Mackay’s THE SERPENT’S SKIN and Louise Weard’s CASTRATION MOVIE ANTHOLOGY, and co-directed the comedy/drama DRINKING AND DRIVING with Jillian Frank.
The idea of a summer-camp genre film tends to bring a certain set of expectations. Were you trying to subvert those in any way with CAMP?
I feel like I didn’t have expectations for myself in terms of what setting a film at summer camp would be. I was never heavily invested in any of the summer-camp slasher films before, and it wasn’t something I thought about when setting up the location for CAMP, and writing the script. So I don’t think I was trying to subvert them intentionally; if it does, that’s mostly because I wouldn’t specifically call CAMP a horror film. I think that I’ve been put into that category because of HONEYCOMB, and some of the themes that come up in CAMP. And if I were to call it a horror film, it would be about the horrors of life, you know? I feel like that’s a bit cliché, but that’s what comes up, and there’s a similar energy to HONEYCOMB there.
How does CAMP expand on the themes you explored in HONEYCOMB?
To me, these films do feel quite closely related, and they’re even intentionally brought into the same world; once you see the film, that will make a bit more sense. It’s these themes of women finding shelter together and creating this kind of colony or cult or coven, and finding new ways to move through society as a whole in that way. So yeah, there are absolutely things that cross over and are brought into CAMP that I was looking into in HONEYCOMB. But it’s also subconscious, and I wasn’t intending the storyline of CAMP to follow that of HONEYCOMB. I just think that’s where my storytelling naturally tends to go.
How did you seek to update themes of witchcraft here, and make them your own?
I didn’t seek to update witchcraft themes, and I’ve been hesitant to call these girls witches. That’s a question that is asked specifically in the film, and it’s answered that we are very powerful, which is my take on what witches mean in general, and the power of friendship, the power of closeness, the power of connection and what that can do when brought together in the right ways. And if that’s considered witchcraft, then so be it, but I would never specifically call what they’re doing here witchcraft.
How has your work as an actor informed your work as a filmmaker?
Well, I feel like it’s the other way around. I feel like my work as a filmmaker has informed my work as an actor, or that my love for film and my love for other actors and just watching movies and experiencing people has informed my ways as an actor. I haven’t actually made a film since doing a high level of acting in THE SERPENT’S SKIN; that was post-CAMP and post-DRINKING AND DRIVING, and my heavy work in CASTRATION MOVIE was also after those. So we’ll have to see how my work as an actor has informed me as a filmmaker, but it hasn’t happened in that order.
Do you see yourself as part of a rising movement of young women in genre filmmaking?
I see that there’s something happening with my friends. I go between looking at it as this very deep thing that’s happening with us and just feeling grateful and lucky to find like-minded artists who are making work in a similar time period that I am. I don’t know if it’s a movement yet; I know people have been talking about it in this way, but I also feel like my most important connections haven’t necessarily been within the genre space, but just art in general. Is there something happening? I think it’s too early to say if there’s a specific movement; maybe somebody else has a deeper take on that, but right now it has just felt really supportive and connected to be able to collaborate with these people I really enjoy spending time with. It’s the best part of my life, or one of them for sure, right now.
Upcoming CAMP theatrical screenings are:
- July 9: IFC Center (New York, NY)
- July 9: The Little Theatre (Rochester, NY)
- July 9: Michigan Theater (Ann Arbor, MI)
- July 9: Fleapit (Carbon Arc) (Halifax, NS, Canada)
- July 10: Pickford Film Center (Bellingham, WA)
- July 10-11: Royale Cinema Lounge (Joplin, MO)
- July 12, 15: Metro Cinema (Edmonton, AB, Canada)
- July 17: Arkadin Cinema & Bar (St. Louis, MO)
- July 17-22: VIFF Centre (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
- July 24: Boedecker Theater (Boulder, CO)
- July 24, 25, 27, 29: The Beacon Cinema (Seattle, WA)
- July 25-26, July 31-August 2: Northwest Film Forum (Seattle, WA)
- August 20-23: Living Room Theaters (Indianapolis, IN)
