I personally have encountered ghosts throughout my life.
I've been meaning to ask Sarah Galea-Davis
I’ve been meaning to ask you is an interview series where Kathryn Mockler invites people to answer questions on being human
Kathryn Mockler: What is your first memory of existing?
Sarah Galea-Davis: I am small enough to sit in the front of the shopping cart. My dad is pushing me through a big, warehouse-like toy store. We're looking for a Curious George. A woman approaches and starts chatting with my dad, then turns to me and, in that voice adults use with kids, asks what toy I came for. I tell her—my answer clear in my mind—but she doesn’t get it. I keep repeating “Curious George,” but it must sound like a garbled mess. She nods, pretending to understand, but I know she doesn’t. I won’t be satisfied until she says the words back to me: “Curious George.” I repeat it again and again, and she starts edging away from me, this intense toddler. Finally, my dad steps in. She says, “Oh, Curious George.” I remember the hot frustration of not being understood.
KM: What is your first memory of being creative?
SGD: One summer, I was about 7 or 8, I organized the kids on my street to put on a variety show. We booked a room in the community center and sold tickets to our parents and neighbours. There was singing, stand-up comedy, a puppet show. I was the MC. It was probably a total mess but I loved the thrill of all of us creating this thing together from nothing.
KM: What is the best or worst dream you ever had?
SGD: When I was just out of university and experiencing what I call my ‘lost year’, working the dead end jobs, dating the wrong people, trying to figure out how to make money and be a creative person etc. I had this dream in February of that very dark winter. I am out in a large shallow body of water, the sun is low in the sky so everything is golden and backlit. I am holding my son, he is climbing up my body and using me as a jungle gym. I can’t see them but I know that somewhere behind them is my husband/partner with our other child. The water is warm and there is a sense that we are at the very edge of the world together. The light makes it impossible to see my son’s face but when I wake up there is such a strong feeling that I have met him. The dream felt like a guiding force out of this time I was living through. I totally changed my life in the month afterwards. I broke up with my boyfriend, moved cities, started writing a script and applied for grants. I made that film which is how I met my husband, who I now have a child with.
I can say being a parent doesn’t always feel like that dream. A lot of it is making snacks and repeating: ‘Put on your socks. Put on your shoes.’ Over and over. But the time in between feels exactly like my dream.
KM: What is your favourite coincidence story to tell?
SGD: Last year, while my husband was shooting in London, I took our seven-year-old son to the Yoko Ono exhibition at Tate. He loved it so much that we ended up going twice. Afterwards, he convinced me to buy us each a Yoko Ono baseball hat (I really do dislike the commodification of exhibits, but his enthusiasm was contagious). A month later, we were in the jungle in Mexico. Hanging out by a lagoon wearing my Yoko Ono hat, a woman approached me, asking if she could take my picture. "It’s for my mom," she explained. I told her about the exhibition and my son really wanted us to have matching hats. She smiled and asked, “Could I get a photo of both of you in your hats? My mom would absolutely love that.”
As we exchanged numbers to arrange a future meet-up, I asked, “Is your mom a really big Yoko Ono fan?” She blushed, then quietly said, “I don’t like to make a big deal out of this, but my mom is Yoko Ono. She’s too old to travel, so I think it would mean a lot to her to see her work still resonating with people around the world.”
We took the photo the next day. So this picture is somewhere in Yoko’s digital collection. I didn’t Google her daughter until we parted ways. It’s a strange story.
KM: Can you recount a time (that you're willing to share) when you were embarrassed?
SGD: Being embarrassed is a common experience for me. Too often I overshare and find myself out there on a limb all by myself and no one comes out to join me, in a conversational/emotional sense.
KM: Can you describe a strange or hilarious memory when something was the opposite of what you anticipated?
SGD: Auditioning an actor, mid-monologue he tore his pants off, in one smooth gesture. They had hidden Velcro up the sides. He did not get the role.
KM: What do you cherish most about this world?
SGD: Light. Solitude. Stories. My family.
KM: What would you like to change about this world?
SGD: Too many things to name.
KM: What advice would you give to your younger self? Your younger self could be you at any age.
SGD: Honestly, I’ve always known I’m a late bloomer and mostly felt okay about that. The only problem is you eventually run into the realities of time. Making films is such an expensive endeavour, I think I’d tell myself to have a hyphenate creative career, another mode of expression for the in-between-making-a-movie time, which is most of the time.
KM: Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not?
SGD: Ghosts have a logical explanation we haven’t discovered yet. Once we have a fuller understanding of the nature of consciousness all will be revealed.
I personally have encountered ghosts throughout my life. My maternal grandmother died when I was little and her ghost came to live with us. She chose me because I was the only person that cried at her funeral and because I got all her clothes for dress-up. She stayed until my early teens when I finally told her it was okay for her to go.
Sarah Galea-Davis’ latest film project:
The Players is a feature film about fifteen-year-old Emily who finds herself caught up in a dangerous web of power dynamics when she joins an avant-garde theatre company.
"The Players is an interesting, complex film that exposes the potential abuses within the theatre industry. It’s quietly dangerous and emotionally charged throughout." - Mary Munoz, Moviescramble
"The Players is a poignant, tense and distressing exploration of power dynamics, manipulation and coercion." - Film Carnage
"A moody, unsettling piece. 4.5/5 stars." - Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film (UK)
Winner: Best Director - Canadian Film Fest 2024
The Players Written and directed by Sarah Galea-Davis Starring Stefani Kimber, Eric Johnson, Jess Salgueiro Genre: Drama Game Theory Films The Players on IG
Summer. 1994. EMILY’s dream of becoming an actor is realized when she is cast as the youngest member of an avant-garde theatre production. She is immediately entranced by the bohemian lives of her fellow actors and feels like she has found a surrogate family. The company, under the direction of REINHARDT, operates with its own strict rules and unwritten codes which Emily must quickly learn. As the lines between artistic and personal relationships blur, Emily becomes entangled in the complex power dynamics within the group.
Sarah Galea-Davis is an award-winning writer/director whose fiction credits include the short films BERLIN, CAN YOU WAVE BYE-BYE? and AN APARTMENT. All three have premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and played at festivals internationally. Her documentary work has been commissioned by Tate Media CBC, MSNBC, Logo and Canada Council for the Arts. She is an alumna of the Reykjavik International Film Festival Talent Lab, TIFF Talent Lab, and is an alumna of Canadian Film Center’s Director’s Lab. Sarah’s work has been nominated for numerous awards including Canadian Screen Awards, Prix Iris and Golden Sheaf Awards. CAN YOU WAVE BYE-BYE? won Best Film at the Worldwide Short Film Festival. THE PLAYERS is her feature film debut.
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