‘Zola’ Filmmaker Janicza Bravo Is a Storyteller From Another Planet

If you want to act in one of Janicza Bravo’s films, pack your bags and prepare to head to outer space. “We’re on a planet, it’s right next to Earth,” Bravo says, chatting by phone on a recent Friday afternoon. “That’s how we hang out on this planet: I like big acting, I like little acting, I like all types of acting, so you’re welcome to bring that here. But I want some gesture because the worst is no energy.”

There’s certainly nothing of an energy shortage in Bravo’s newest feature “Zola,” from A24, which she directed and co-wrote along with Jeremy O. Harris. The film, which had a pre-pandemic premiere at Sundance in early 2020 and is at long last now playing in theaters, tracks a nightmare saga through the Florida panhandle and a number of its strip clubs. It is based on a viral Twitter thread that is (supposedly, mostly) itself a true story. 

Refreshingly, unlike many of the recent on-camera projects whose ethos lies within the depths of social media, the film treats what we do on our phones with reverence; as the money-making, connection-forging, sometimes even life-or-death portal it actually is.

But while it is somewhat of an allegory—not to mention genuinely horrific, at times—Bravo insists, “The movie is first and foremost a comedy.” For that reason, she relished the opportunity to make changes after the initial festival screenings, informed by the audience’s reaction or lack thereof to different moments. “There are new things you learn and we were able to go back in,” she adds. “It’s not so much a hurdle, but there’s just a long-winded journey of editing a film.” 

Long before that, though, when she’d first signed on to the project in 2018, she allowed herself to become inspired in the way she always becomes inspired: “I start visually. I always start with photos, pulling together references, it’s kind of like an exercise I’ve been doing the last 15 years,” she says of her work’s jumping off point. She combs through her personal library of more than 10,000 images, forming what she calls “the tapestry of the world I want to build.” 

She casts her projects in a similarly tactile fashion. She wants performers to bring what they bring, 100 percent of it, and that in itself will flesh out how the story looks, sounds, and feels. “Each of the actors, from my first short film ‘Eat,’ to ‘Lemon’ to ‘Zola,’ so many of those performers are being cast because of something they already have,” she says. 

“Zola” features a patchwork ensemble of both indie darlings and veteran talents, including Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, and Colman Domingo, among others. From a directorial standpoint, Bravo always intends to meet the actor where they’re at, rather than pushing them towards any particular style. “Every actor is different. That is to say, some actors want a good deal of talking and some actors want to be here in the room and the space,” she says. “I don’t direct a lot of performance, a lot of it is going to be on the page. I would say that’s my approach: I adjust to what the performer wants.” 

READ: How Colman Domingo Commited to His Pimp Role in ‘Zola’

Having now been successful in the indie filmmaking space for some time (though to this she remarks, “I have?”), Bravo has learned a great deal. But importantly, she doesn’t rue the time nor effort it’s taken to get here. “It’s OK to not know what everything is, it’s OK to not know what everything is called, it’s OK to feel a little lost, and it’s OK to ask questions,” she says. “Even if you feel you are in an environment that doesn’t support or cater to that, it’s OK.” 

However, there is one thing she wishes she’d known on her first day on her first set. Before hopping off the call to continue on her day of wall-to-wall press, Bravo adds without hesitation: “I would try to spend a lot less time comparing myself to others.”