Sarah Pirozek: Producer, Director, and Writer

F: Tell me about your background. Did you go to film school? when did you start developing a passion for filmmaking?

S: I had kind of an unconventional upbringing. I was in German schools at first, then went to school in the USA, and then British boarding school, until my mother decided to move to Spain and I was out on my own at 16. My mother’s family had all been either painters or in the Navy. I'm not cut out for early hours and scrubbing decks, so I applied to Chelsea School of Art. I got accepted, but honestly wasn’t ready and quickly realised I wanted more than painting. So I finished my foundation and then decided not to continue. During this time, I was a squatter living off the grid until I was 20. I was in some bands, made art and little movies… But then I decided I should use more of the brain God gave me and started making super 8 films to get myself into film school. My first film was called “Confessions of a Girl Who Never Received a Visitation From the Sacred Heart”. St. Martins liked me well enough and accepted me into their experimental film studies program. It was a great time, very free, but when I left, I didn’t actually have very many real filmmaking skills. While I was at St. Martins I started filming a hip-hop crew I ran with, and after I finished the programme, I thought I would go to New York to see what was up there. I arrived in bleak midwinter in New York City with £50 in my back pocket (all the money I had in the world), a pair of sandals, a pair of boots and that was it.  2 weeks in, my boots broke so I wore sandals and socks my first NYC winter. But it was great.

F: What was your first project that made you start working in the industry?

S: The summer before I left the UK, I was asked by friends of friends to Art Direct a feature film about Brits entangled in the ’troubles’ in Northern Ireland. It produced by a great guy called Robert Smith - a very political filmmaker who was in a band called the Snakes (with my ex-boyfriend Rob Gotobed who was in WIRE… one day I will make a documentary about them!). 

F: Tell me about your latest film - Feminist Noir Thriller #LIKE. Did you choose Noir or did Noir chose you as genre? 

S: #LIKE stars Marc Menchaca (OZARK) and Sarah Rich (ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK) and it is an elevated genre film: a Feminist-Noir. I was fed up with the status quo. I felt like creating genre films was the only way a woman could get noticed. I’m not a true horror fan, but I do love dark, dark noir, so I went for that.  #LIKE is a fever dream, calling up a voracious chimera, the world of a teen girl deep in grief. The story was written just before the #METOO movement began. It's the story of Woodstock teen, Rosie, who is mourning the first anniversary of her younger sister’s death, and discovers the mysterious man that sexploited and bullied her sister to commit suicide is back online trolling for new victims. After the authorities refuse to get involved, Rosie finds a darker side she never knew she had, as she takes justice into her own hands. This psychological thriller nods to filmmakers I love like Hitchcock, Fuller, and Campion, echoing terrifying true stories that are all over the internet of teens being exploited and bullied by predators or even their peers. 

Sarah Pirozek working on set.

I began thinking about how the victim’s families - particularly siblings - who are left behind have to deal with the loss of female victims. The story picks up a year after Rosie’s sister’s suicide, and follows Rosie as she continues to process her stages of grief. As I researched the film, I discovered that there are multiple platforms for teen networking that are unlike anything adults today grew up with. Parents can’t keep up with the potential for predators entering their children’s lives, and in many cases the legal system can’t keep up either. There just aren't enough laws on both the state and federal level to pursue the offenders. International law enforcement struggles with legislation that lags behind technology, turning it into a global problem. Even though the FBI reports that ‘Sextortion’ is the single largest growing threat to children on the internet, only five states in the USA have made it a felony.  The back story of #LIKE is shaped on one of these true stories. The issue was so under-addressed, I decided to make #LIKE to explore some of the ripples of the terrifying reality of sexploitation. For background, think of the heartbreaking documentaries AUDREY AND DAISY and ROLL RED ROLL, which address the toxic masculinity pervading toxic rape culture in the USA. Ultimately the film is a meditation on what the families of those left behind are forced to deal with: the grief, the anger, the sense of powerlessness. Stylistically it is similar to IT FOLLOWS, BERLIN SYNDROME, and HARD CANDY, but for the digital age. 

F: Have you ever countered difficulties/obstacles whilst working in the industry, because you are a woman? 

S: Is water wet? Yes. When I first started reaching out to producers for work, they were mainly all men and I would literally get invited to meet them at 11pm… After  one of those ‘meetings’, I decided I would have to figure out my own path and just started shooting music videos and spec commercials and building a reel for myself. And then when I had a foot in a door, who helped me? Women, African American men and gay men; we all hung together. As I began doing more professional jobs, I found the ceiling stopped at mid-range music videos and commercials. No one was knocking on my door to direct a movie and I was literally told I wouldn’t be hired as a woman in narrative TV, as a writer or director. So decided I needed to write. I sat down and read everything I could about screenwriting. I took some classes and wrote three scripts: "The Squatters Handbook" about my years living in Brixton, “Rockaway”, set in the rundown beach neighborhood of Rockaway, New York, the most diverse place on the planet, and “#LIKE”.

As a producer/director, my work has been commissioned by The Sundance Channel, VH1, National Geographic, Sundance, AMC, Lifetime, BBC, TLC, CNN, TNT, NBC, PBS, V2, Gee Street, Atlantic, Sony, Jive, Electra, Tommy Boy, Universal, Geffen and Pallas Records, MTV, HBO, HERE!TV and Channel 4 TV UK. I've worked with an international network of outstanding production personnel, filming throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Western & Eastern Europe, Taiwan, Canada and Papua New Guinea.  My scripts have been nominated as semi-, quarter-, and finalists in multiple screenplay competitions such as Slamdance, ScreenCraft, Austin FF, and The Page Awards. #LIKE, is already receiving stellar festival reviews, showing alongside “ Honey Boy” by Alma Har’el & Shia LaBeouf, “Alaska Is a Drag,” by Shaz Bennett and Noah Baumbach’s new film ‘Marriage Story’, and winning ‘Best Producer’ and being nominated for ‘Best Indie’.

F: Your future plans are…. 

S: To keep at it. The hustle never ends.

F: Any piece of advice, word of encouragement to young women filmmakers out there just starting in the industry.

S: Keep at it. The hustle never ends. Don't give up, and own your own material. And most importantly, don't wait for permission. I feel grateful (not to sound corny) that I have lived to see the day the mirror has shattered which was reflecting back the braggadocio of all the men who ran Hollywood, puffing them up and keeping them safe. Now they have to mind their Ps&Qs… let’s hope it lasts.

Please view the teaser link for #LIKE: https://vimeo.com/387042268