Ambitious indie film project premieres eight years after it began

Dec. 2—To say Samuel Tressler IV's first feature-length film project was ambitious would be an understatement.

Tressler, who grew up in Frederick County and spent much of his life here, had studied film at Villa Julie College and had made music videos and shorts but hadn't tackled a feature film until 2013. Partly because he had access to equipment that could shoot in 3D, he chose to make his first feature a 3D movie.

And as if that weren't enough of a challenge, he decided "Leda," an updated retelling of the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, would also be a silent, black-and-white film.

"I basically set myself up to fail in every way possible," Tressler joked from his home in New York. "It's a silent, 3D, black-and-white feature film. Everyone says for your first film, don't use children, don't use animals, don't do anything on water ... well, we did all of that and more and made it a period piece and did it all in 3D. So it was absolutely stupid. I was like, if we can pull this off, regardless of if it's good or bad, we should really be trained for anything else."

Tressler, along with rest of the "Leda" cast and crew, is finally seeing their efforts pay off. Eight years in the making, "Leda," shot primarily in Frederick County, is finally being screened in front of live audiences. It premiered at the Festival of Cinema in New York in October, where it won the Audience Choice award, and is continuing to make its way through the festival circuit.

This week, it will be the opening night film at Another Hole in the Head Film Festival in San Francisco. For the duration of the festival, Dec. 1 to 15, "Leda" will also stream online in both 2D and 3D for viewers anywhere.

Plans are in the works for an in-person screening in Maryland the spring.

"It had been probably a year and a half since I'd watched it, and I'd only seen it in 2D," said cowriter Wesley Pastorfield, who lives in Hampstead. "To see it at the premiere in 3D — honestly, it was amazing. I was so proud to be a part of it."

"Leda" began with a painting Pastorfield had created for a Greek mythology art exhibition. When Tressler saw the piece, Patsorfield told him the story of Leda and the Swan — not that there is much written about it.

The Greek myth tells of a young woman who is seduced and raped by Zeus when he takes the form of a swan. Leda goes on to bear two children of the god.

"At the time, I was trying to find an idea to get excited about," Tressler recalled. "I thought it was interesting that the story reflected the story of the Virgin Mary. I was interested in exploring how crazy it would be to be impregnated by a god, and how crazy it is that huge religions are based off of this concept ... and also just how crazy it is to be pregnant in general and grow a child inside of yourself, how maddening or strange that might be.

"I also wanted to explore our relationship to the divine and to the tangible things in life," he went on, "and how you can lose that balance."

Pastorfield and Tressler worked together to write the film — or, rather, outline various impressions they had on what they wanted to see happen, scene by scene, as it excludes dialogue. The original script, in fact, was only about eight pages. The final film run-time is 76 minutes.

Pastorfield describes it as being like a character study of a woman who has a divine encounter, has to keep that experience to herself, and the psychological repercussions of that.

Though considered a period piece, it's not exactly clear in what period of time "Leda" takes place, nor is it relevant. It's set in what resembles a turn-of-the-century estate but feels timeless, more akin to a dream.

"I wanted to make the time period pretty undefined," Tressler said. "I wanted it to feel classic and familiar, but at the same time, you could say this took place in another world. I like to view film as a reflection of life ... relatable but set against reality."

Filming in 3D and black and white, as well as it being a silent film, were not devices chosen for novelty's sake, nor do they come across as gimmicky. Rather, the film's creators explored these tools to ultimately enhance the telling of a story.

A black-and-white film, for example, helps to immediately separate the images from day-to-day reality, offering a bit of the surrealism Tressler was going for.

Tressler, meanwhile, has always been interested in the early, silent era of cinema, when filmmakers were more like scientists, as he puts it, experimenting and trying new things.

"How do you relate to an audience? How do you combine shots to have a deeper meaning than either of those shots would have [individually]?" he said. "It was a constant growing of how powerful this medium could be, and then it kind of got its head cut off when sound came. All of a sudden, everything was song and dance or just talking. Rather than analyzing the effect on an audience, it became more of an entertainment medium.

"I thought trying to make a piece without dialogue would help me to explore some of these other ways," he went on.

Because he had access to 3D equipment through Mike Peters of Archai Media, Tressler, at the time managing the creative space Area 31 in downtown Frederick, saw 3D as another tool that could be used in place of dialogue. "I tried to express the distance of this character — from her surroundings, from other characters — and show, visually, her mental state and how she loses her connection to reality," Tressler said. "We're so used to everyone talking."

While there are no words, the film does include sound — breathing, footsteps, wind, rustling feathers and wind, ambient noises, as well as a score that combines pieces by André Barros and Björn Magnusson.

Tressler estimates writing about 80 drafts of the film by the time it was finally complete. At one point, he and Pastorfield had written in a country doctor character and had hoped to cast John Waters to play the role. Another role that all but fell by the wayside was that of Leda's husband, who initially played a much larger role but is only included briefly in the final product.

"With such an ambitious project, some things had to give," Pastorfield said. "You wanna get the project done and hold onto what your idea of it is, so you shift it around a little bit and have to make little sacrifices here and there."

When Adeline Thery initially took on the character of Leda, the role was smaller, but as the script was rewritten over and over, the film became almost entirely Thery alone onscreen.

"I had this big crew, all very good technicians, and sometimes it was tough because I was the only actor," said Thery, who was born in France, studied theater in Barcelona, and is now based in New York. "It wasn't until we were done that I realized, oh my god, it's just me. I was terrified to actually watch the movie because, you know, if I'm not good, it's going to be horrible."

From the film's conception, it took the crew nearly three years to cast Thery as the lead. It took even longer to crowdsource enough funds to start production.

Tressler teamed up with Clark Kline, cofounder of Frederick's 72 Film Fest, who would become the producer of "Leda." Kline had been looking to work on a bigger project outside of the annual festival and was sold after reading the script and hearing what Tressler had planned for it.

Meanwhile, when production began, the cast and crew entered a cycle of shooting for three to four days, raising more money for a month or so, then going back on location to shoot again for another few days. This went on for about a year, before moving into post-production.

"It was a very, very hard process," Thery said. "There were moments where we thought nobody's ever gonna watch this movie. I also told everyone, 'This is my last movie. I'm never gonna act in a movie after this.' It was kind of intense. But I'm really, really proud of the result. It's a strange movie, but it's beautiful. It was worth it."