AFF ‘24: Getting Hyperreal with Dirty Towel’s Co-writer and Director, Callie Carpinteri

One of the scariest things a teenager can talk about with their parents is sex. Viewed as a rite of passage in some circles and a loss of innocence in others, sex, in its literal and metaphorical forms, can weigh a ton on young people. Director and co-writer Callie Carpinteri’s Dirty Towel observes how the concept and act of sex weighs heavily on a girl named Charlie (Emma Parks) and her mother (Laura Coover).

A few days after making its Texas Premiere at the Austin Film Festival, Callie sat down with Hyperreal Film Club’s Justin Norris to talk about the characters of her short, working with a primarily female film crew, and the other areas of the female experience that film can still explore.

Thanks for the time today, Callie. Let’s kick things off with what inspired the creation of Dirty Towel?

This idea started between myself and my co-writer, Emma Parks, who also stars in the film. Her best friend heard that exact dirty towel speech from her mom when she was younger, and she told Emma, who then shared it with me, and it stuck with us ever since.

We didn't hear the exact iteration growing up, but we experienced our own versions of it. Last year, we were talking a lot about that and about the way that a lot of people in our lives have felt shame for their sexual choices. That idea prompted us to make a film that tried to shift that narrative and hopefully change the way that people are talking about sex and viewing themselves after having sex.

How did you and Emma approach the autobiographical elements of this story? Did either of you ever feel that y’all were getting too personal, or not enough?

With anything that has a personal touch, it's always hard because you want to handle this material with care. For us, it was important when we were developing Charlie as a character and her journey to reflect a lot on our own experiences and pull from that which, in a way, is very vulnerable. We tried to kind of push through any uncomfortableness in doing that, and tried to make this story the most authentic possible. Hopefully by talking about our experience, that could resonate with people.

When we were doing it, we were like, “Are people going to connect to this? Is this a universal experience?” Since completing the film and seeing people watch it, we’ve had people come up and say, “I saw myself in this character. I understand this.” That made it even more validating that we did that hard work at the beginning by trying to put so much of the discomfort and vulnerability that we had in our own lives onto the page.

An interesting aspect of this short was how the mom views her daughter’s growth and the prospect of her having sex. Any parent has to grapple with that at one point or another. Have you ever had anybody come up to you and say they saw themselves as the mom character?

Elizabeth was someone who isn't doing this just out of a hatred of sex. It's because of her own shame and experiences and wanting to protect her daughter, but doing it in ways that aren't necessarily the best. It's misguided. We have had a couple of parents in the audience come up and say they saw themselves in the mother character in the way that they're so scared to pass down their own baggage to their kids. They were like, “Oh my God, I didn't even realize that that's what could happen!” You want to protect your kid, but you don't always know the right way to do it. 

For a lot of people, including Elizabeth, this is their first time being a parent. You don't know the right thing to do sometimes. Acknowledging that feeling is probably the first step in trying to change that because if you can’t understand your kid, you can pass things on to them in a bad way. Understanding your kids can hopefully help you get across the messages that you want, but in ways that aren't going to traumatize them or create negative perceptions of themselves.

I loved how this short offered a deeper perspective of Charlie’s mom. Laura Coover does such a great job in showing her the weight of her character’s past through her line deliveries and physical performance. How did y'all go about creating that character, and understanding her?

The character of Elizabeth was definitely the hardest one to figure out for us. We were pulling so much from our own life for Charlie, but we aren't parents. We haven't had that experience. For the first few drafts, we didn't have that flashback scene in the short. We just had the present and then the beginning flashback, and we were getting notes from people, and someone at one point wanted to know more about the mom. 

We had already discussed the backstory a little bit, but we didn't know how much to put into the short because we were told you gotta keep it short and concise. We decided around draft five to add in a flashback to try and give more context. Once we did that, we talked to our parents and older people that we knew about how to make Elizabeth feel authentic.

Seeing Laura bring it to life is what made it the moment that it is. That's not something we could have written, but the performance that you see is the performance Laura did during rehearsals, and it was perfect.

Describe you and Emma's writing process.

We're cousins, so we've grown up together, we have that family thing. The thing that they always say about family is, even if you disagree, you're always going to love each other. You're always going to be with each other. Having that foundation helped us a lot when writing. I had never had a co-writer before, so we learned a lot about how we worked and our language when writing. I like to plot everything out first. I want to know where we're going. Emma is very creative. She has a ton of ideas, and sometimes she wants to try them out.

For this story, she had always leaned more towards comedy, and I'd always lean more towards drama. The reason that the short works with the tone is because we were allowing ourselves to put different parts of ourselves into it and have this blend that felt like the both us as writers. Since then we’ve developed [Dirty Towel] into a feature. That's been a whole other journey, but it's really fun to have someone that you can bounce ideas off of.

I was a big fan of Rosalind Wong’s score for this short. It felt very White Lotus-adjacent. What was it like bringing the music to life with her for this short?

I'm so glad you brought that up because I think she did such a great job with the score! It took us a while to find the right composer and the right sounds for the film because there's these different genres and themes. We had our temp music for so long that when we got Roz, we were already picture locked.

I remember the first time we spoke about the film, she was sharing the ideas that she had, and a lot of that did come from White Lotus. She viewed sex as a primal thing. I was like, “I have no idea how that's gonna sound, but go for it. I want to hear it!” She really went for it, and it worked.

Her process is so creative. I'm not a musically inclined person, but I feel like I learned so much doing this with her, because we would have these in-depth conversations about everything. If I asked, “Why is this sound there?” She's like, “Charlie's instrument is the violin, and it comes in here, here, and here,” and I’m like, “Oh, my God, you're a genius, that's so insightful!” She really made sure each piece was emotionally connected to the characters.

Dirty Towel has a primarily female key crew and cast. Was that intentional? What does that makeup bring to the set and the film process?

It brings a lot to have a team that can connect so much to the material. It was intentional from conception. Even though a lot of people can relate to the universal feeling of shame, for this particular story, we wanted to spotlight the female experience of that shame. We wanted people who connected to it on that level. As a female filmmaker, I am very much trying to help bridge the gap between representation of women on screen and behind the camera.

For me and Emma, it felt right. We knew that it would make the film much more personal to have as many women on set as we could in roles that they aren’t usually in. It was very healing to have that atmosphere on set.

What writers and directors inspire you?

Oh, so many people! I love Greta Gerwig. Lady Bird was the first film that spoke to me in a way that no other film had in that I reflected on my own relationships and that's so powerful as a writer and a director to be able to do that. Celine Song is another filmmaker; Past Lives is so great.

There’s so many out there. Honestly, it’s so fascinating to see the way everybody has their own unique style. As a filmmaker, that's something that you want to develop. What do I want my style to be? What do I want to take away from the people that I admire? What are some things to try that haven't been done? Those questions lead to the fun balance of growing as an artist.

Who’s a performer you’d love to work with?

Oh my gosh, that's a great question. There's so many out there! Who do I think would be so fun to work with? I’m debating who I should say right now… I love Florence Pugh, I think she’d be really fun. I love Saoirse Ronan, I think she’d be great.

What are some great films that explore the female perspective?

There's so many. Obviously Lady Bird. That does a great job with its complex mother-daughter relationship. We were also inspired by Edge of Seventeen. God, there's so many out there. Barbie is another choice. Honestly any movie that really explores a strong female lead is a good bet. But, I think there's still so much to be explored too.

What areas of the female experience or perspective do you think still has room to be explored on film?

For us, we're trying to tackle the way that women are made to feel ashamed for their sexual choices, especially with how things are now in society, with so many people feeling they should have a say over womens’ choices and their bodies. Until we live in a world where that's not true, those things should continue to be explored.

Even if people say, “Oh, we've seen it before,” it's what a lot of women are still living right now, and I think that should continue to be talked about. Something for the future is more coming of age stories for women who aren't just in their teens, you know? That's something we’re trying to explore with Elizabeth in the feature. I also want to show women in more dynamic roles, showcasing more sides of them that we haven’t seen before.

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