Mira Fornay has so far made four feature films and 14 shorts. She studied directing at Famu in Prague and at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield near London. Her second feature film, My Dog Killer, screened in competition at the 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam where it won the Tiger Award. The film went on to win the “Sun in a Net” national Slovak film award in the categories of Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Film and was the official Slovak entry for the Oscars.

Your film is a story of a determined heroine who pursues her goal fearlessly. At the same time, her starting point is a very common one, it is something many kids have probably experienced – she goes looking for a lost budgie. Why did you find it important to create this type of a protagonist?

At that time, Romy Willems was my inspiration, even though the film is not a documentary. I wrote the character for her because she is just naturally close to such a protagonist – I felt that she could be a great inspiration to other girls. That’s because Romy, our little main actress, has a big heart and an unbreakable determination, she does everything she can for other people. She loves animals and nature, she has an adventurous spirit, and she's a little fighter. If someone’s getting hurt, Romy steps in without hesitation. If someone needs help, she will help them. She is straightforward, honest and energetic. These qualities are usually attributed to boys, but I think that’s just a stereotype. In our case, Romy is the vigorous and courageous one, while her friend Cypko is the careful one.

During her journey, the protagonist not only meets but also gets to know people in more detail. Have you considered them to be archetypes of interesting people around us we might be overlooking a bit?

Romy meets characters from the real world. They also represent the archetypes we know from fairy tales. Since these are played by non-actors, they look very natural and authentic. When I started working with the children on a fiction story, we were playing a game called The Heroine’s Journey. I adapted the game for kids. It is originally an adult therapeutic method titled The Hero’s Journey, which I experienced as part of a self-development training in 2019. The time we spent with Romy, Cypko, and Klárka was full of adventures. I was writing the script in the meantime, and since I love to work spontaneously, sometimes, a new character we met in the woods slid into the story during filming. The man on the boat is one such case – he wasn’t in the original script. He wanted to be in the film, though, so he became “Mr. Cake” alias “The Challenge”. However, I cast actors from my previous film into the roles of “The Gravel Pit Emperor” and “The Queen of the Underworld” – the homeless Danica. My mother Mária also acted in this film. The kids adored her. I didn't think about whether the adult characters were outsiders, but there might be something to it. Naturally, as an author, I am attracted to characters who are somewhat neglected or excluded from mainstream society, be it the elderly or the homeless. Anyhow, it wasn’t my intention in the film.

With these individual meetings, the film goes a bit beyond realism. Why did you make that creative choice?

Working with children in the environment of a magical forest with ancient trees and a beautiful river, discovering many different places, that opens up a new space in your soul. I, myself, am just like a kid and my fantasy has no limits, so children have become my dream partners and for this reason, the story goes beyond the borders of the real world. But we were still working with the places and the atmosphere that exist in the Danube forests.

Why did you choose this specific location?

It was an easy decision. We were surrounded by the pandemic. When we were filming it in the summer of 2021, the pandemic was receding, the forest was an ideal place for working risk-free. We tested regularly and abided by all of the measures, the forest was a safe space. At the same time, I wanted to emphasise the importance of forests and nature in our lives. I dedicated the film to children, the trees, and the river, because they represent my holy trinity.

You said you wrote the script for a specific actress. What was your collaboration with a child actress like?

The collaboration went great. Romy has the same amount of energy as I do, so we didn’t have to limit ourselves in this way at all. She trusted me and I trusted her completely, even if tiredness may have resulted in a few more difficult moments. The shooting itself was minimalistic – we had no make-up artists, no costume designers, no scenographer, etc; the core crew consisted of seven people, and the highest number of people on set was twelve. In a fiction film! Romy found repeating the scenes a bit hard. Sometimes we would do more than three takes, as she had to memorise the lines. But in the end, against all odds, it was beautiful work and we all enriched one another.

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published: 08.02.2023
updated: 08.02.2023