Lunch with Lefty/Righty

Interview with Max Walker-Silverman, director of Lefty/Righty

Can you tell us a bit about the title?
Lefty is a mythic cowboy name. It’s a nod towards the western genre that the film flirts with (sort of). And Righty, well, it’s pretty similar but completely opposite. Balance and opposition. Sounds like a movie to me!

Is the story in any way biographical, or autobiographical?
Oh sure, everything in it I either did or did not experience (Hah!). Honestly it’s a patchwork of my truths, my lies, the truths of others, and their lies too. It’s a tall, tall, tale.

Where is the film shot?
It’s shot on Wright’s Mesa in Southwest Colorado, just outside of the town of Norwood. I grew up right around there. It can be so pretty you’d cry.

Can you tell us about the casting process?
Well, Lewis Pullman, who plays Righty, is a truly fine actor from Los Angeles. Grant Hyun, a producer, somehow knew he would be perfect for the role and thank the lord he was fool enough to join us. Everyone else in the cast are Colorado locals making their movie debuts. I met Marty Grace Dennis, who plays Lefty, through my old baby-sitter and heavens am I glad I did. And Ruby and all the shaggy brothers are just my closest friends; I’ve known them all since birth.

What do you hope to explore in the near future as a filmmaker?
I’m wrapping up a new short, also shot in Colorado, called Chuj Boys of Summer. It’s about a Guatemalan teenager beginning a new life in rural America. It’s totally different from Lefty/Righty but kinda the same. Beyond that I’d like to keep making movies in the quiet corners of the American West. Stories that celebrate gentle people in tough spots. I really do believe in kindness and love and a more moral world even if sometimes life just don’t seem so. Maybe believing in it is a step towards achieving it and maybe filming it is a step towards believing in it. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Would you say that the short film format has given you any particular freedom?
The format is incredibly restrictive but oddly enough our neurology is such that restrictions are indeed strangely freeing. The blank page is frightening and yet perhaps 12 blank pages are less frightening than 100? There’s also the tepid freedom of having no chance at making money and not being expected too. Yeehaw.

Lefty/Righty is part of International Competition I1.