Interview: Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping on ‘Femme’
There’s a frenetic energy pulsating throughout every single second, every single frame of Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping‘s directorial debut Femme, a neo-noir thriller that follows drag artist Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett). One night after a show, he steps out to get some cigarettes and is brutally attacked by Preston (George MacKay), out with a gang of his friends. Although Jules is able to recover physically, he withdraws from the outside world, traumatized. Months later, he recognizes his attacker by chance in a sauna. Without make-up and wrapped only in a towel, Jules is able to approach the other man incognito and find out who he is. He begins an affair with the closeted Preston, with a plan to take his revenge.
Femme originally began its life as a short film, also written and directed by Freeman and Ng Choon. The short, which screened at the 2021 London Film Festival and ended up winning the Best British Short Award at the 2021 BIFAs, carried a similar premise, albeit condensed into an 18-minute runtime. However, Freeman and Ng Choon always meant for the project to become a feature, only making the short as a test-run to secure funding for the film. “When we set out to make the short, we always wanted to make it a feature,” says Freeman. “That was where it started. The short was originally a proof of concept. We had never directed a film before so we had to prove ourselves. Our producers actually put some money behind us because they believed in us, but the short was always meant as a way into a feature. Then obviously, when you actually go into making a short, and you put everything into it, and you’re doing festivals and all this stuff, the short becomes a whole thing in and of its self. We kind of completely forgot we wanted to make a feature for a while because this short took over our lives.”
The filmmakers faced several challenges while expanding the short into a feature, including issues related to pacing and character development that they were determined to get right before starting production on the film. “The challenge of moving from a short into a feature was expanding upon it without making it feel like we were stretching it,” explains Freeman. “What we took from the short that we really liked was this archetype of two characters, this relationship between two people that we found really interesting. But in order to make them work for this feature story that we started to develop, we realized they also had to be completely new characters.”
The process of developing entirely new characters for the feature also involved casting completely new actors for the film. The short originally starred celebrated British actors Paapa Essiedu and Harris Dickinson, both of whom drew rave reviews for their performances. However, when it came to casting for the feature, Freeman and Ng Choon initially discussed the idea of bringing Essiedu and Dickinson back to reprise their roles but soon found that process complicated by their incredibly busy schedules – and so they decided to start from scratch. “We had to reinvent these characters, even though they still felt quite familiar,” says Freeman of their decision to recast. “We wanted to approach it in a completely new fresh sort of way so it felt quite important, both for the actors themselves and also for our creative process, that the lines didn’t blur [between these new characters and their previous iterations]. The characters in the feature are a lot more quieter and more contained; if you compare Harris’ character to George’s character particularly, they’re slightly recognizable. But Wes [Dickinson’ character in the short] is very in control and charming, and I think Preston [MacKay’s character in the feature] wishes he was that guy, but he’s actually chaotic and he’s damaged.”
Femme had been described as a “revenge thriller” by many publications (including this one) when it was first announced. However, there’s much more to it than initially meets the eye. While the film does contain elements of a revenge thriller, particularly Jules’ initial motive and the lengths he goes to in order to exact his revenge against Preston, it’s also a complex exploration of identity and sexuality that transcends any initial genre trappings, presenting characters who are not simply black and white, but rather layered and multifaceted. “We love that the film has been described as a revenge thriller,” says Ng Choon. “There’s the black-and-white revenge thriller that’s exciting and satisfying to watch in a certain way, but we specifically wanted to explore the gray areas of revenge. In order for Jules to exact his revenge, he needs to infiltrate and get to know his target better. Invariably, as you get to know your target better, it humanizes them and it complicates the journey of the revenge taker. We were just really interested in not telling a black-and-white moralistic story, but to really explore the human side of every act, no matter how dark.”
The dynamic between Jules and Preston lies at the center of the film and, thanks to the terrific performances of Stewart-Jarrett and MacKay, the film soars whenever they share the screen together, as Jules’ nervous, jumpy energy is off-set by Preston’s gruff, intimidating nature, which gradually erodes as the film progresses as Preston chips away at his carefully constructed demeanor. “We always talked about how it important it was for us to explore different drags in the film,” elaborates Ng Choon. “The way Jules is a drag queen, and then Preston is almost like a drag king in performing his his masculinity. The world that we designed around them represents the ideal of of their respective fantasies.”
Preston is very much the yin to Jules’ yang, a dynamic that Freeman and Ng Choon made sure to also communicate through the technical aspect of the film in addition to the performances from its leads. “We were very, very clear in communicating [to the cast and crew] that it was a film of two different worlds coming together,” says Freeman of capturing the explosive energy between them. “We really wanted to define what those worlds meant and particularly, what those worlds meant to Jules because we view the film primarily through his POV. That drag sequence at the beginning of the film is shot so differently to the rest of the film, it’s almost like a music video because it’s his fantasy. It’s his most powerful point. He commands his audience, and then, he’s like a rock crashing down to Earth by this terrible thing that happens.”
Following a year-long promotional cycle for Femme (the film initially hit the festival circuit in February 2023, over a year before its US theatrical release), Freeman and Ng Choon are ready to move on. And while they’re tightlipped about the details, the duo already have a number of upcoming projects in the works. “We’ve got some stuff in development,” says Freeman. “There’s one thing we can’t talk too much about. It’s actually the main thing [we’re working on] but yeah, stuff is on its way in a quite an exciting way. The film’s been such an incredible launching pad for us and we’re excited to see what comes next.”
Femme is now available on VOD.