“It was like meeting a historical figure,” says Celine Song about her first meeting with Christine Vachon. Song was a renowned playwright long before she decided to make her first film, a semi-autobiographical love triangle between a Korean-American woman, her American husband and her Korean childhood friend who flew around the world to find her. His specificity and his New York character made Vachon a dream co-creator, a fantasy that suddenly became reality when Song offered her Past Lives– and conquered her.
Distributed by A24, painfully romantic Past Lives It did well at the box office last summer (a rarity for films of this magnitude these days) and is a strong contender for the Oscars, which are expected in the fall. Betting on new directors is more demanding than ever—theatrical showcases have shrunk, streaming has diminished opportunities to stand out—but Vachon and Keeler can take credit for launching each of their careers. Boys don’t cry Kimberly Pierce To Zola Janica Well done. “Every day I would come in and say, ‘I believe in this,’ and Christina would say, ‘If you believe in this, then that’s my belief now,’” Song says of their dynamic on the show. Past Lives kit. “She just believed in me.”
Vachon monitors social media to see how Past Lives reaches the audience. Two years ago, she found Twitter to be a critical barometer for people affected by Covid-19. Zola, whose story originated on the platform. Her instincts have a lot to do with a deep understanding of audiences and engagement that dates back to the launch of Killer: “Everyone points to Oppenheimer And Barbie, and saying, “See? If this? This is what people have always wanted.” But we knew people always wanted it!” Vachon remembers I mass attraction of LGBTQ people to the theater back in the early 90s, simply because by that time this group had little representation in cinema at all. “Half of them walked out of the theater and thought, ‘What the hell was that?’ and some of these guys were like, ‘I just wanted to watch boys kiss,'” Vachon says. “But I realized that if you make a movie that’s aimed specifically at that audience, it won’t necessarily cross over if you make it for the right amount of money. It was an incredibly liberating feeling – a real collision of art and commerce.”
That unique Hollywood alchemy remains at the core of Vachon’s value system, even as she navigates a turbulent period for her industry between the massive impact of COVID and a year of labor strikes. She navigated decades of uncertainty: the transition from VHS to DVD, the end of video rental stores, the transition to digital broadcasting. “The only reason Killer is still standing is because we are very good at listening to the market and changing quickly,” Vachon says. “I’m not crying about, ‘We’re not shooting on film anymore’… and I don’t know what’s on the other end of these strikes. I’m just trying to figure out how we can keep changing seats in the cabin. Titanic.»