Making her directorial debut on a film, thesp Vera Farmiga (Up in The Air, The Departed) has herself lifted to higher ground. Drama that shared a title of a popular Stevie Wonder song signifies the search for one’s spiritual nature, for God, and for where one belongs. Farmiga as well plays a woman named Corrine Miller who struggles with doubts about her marriage with Ethan (Joshua Leonard), their small community of fundamentalist Christians, its views about God, and her role as mother of three small children. At one point she eventually leaves them all to find herself. Farmiga also co-wrote the script with Carolyn S. Briggs inspired by her memoir This Dark World.
In exclusive interview with Fandango the Academy Award-nominated actress revealed she was encouraged to direct Higher Ground by her husband and the producers Carly Hugo and Matt Parker who had been on board at least for several years in the development. The actress who is of Ukrainian origin actually never thought she would direct:
Never, it came as a surprise. It was one of those extreme left turns that you take. There were times when I was just terrified about it because there was just so little time and I was pregnant at the same time. It came together so quickly, the financing, and we had to shoot before my baby bump emerged so that was a lot of pressure.
Speaking frankly, Farmiga describes difficulties she has experienced during the filming:
I had no toilet, which is not a good thing for a woman in the second trimester of pregnancy. We had a Porta-Potty that the entire cast shared. But it’s an epic film in the sense that we had 21 live music performances, 58 shooting locations, a massive cast, three different time periods, costume, hair, makeup, wardrobe, furniture, car changes…it’s a lot. We shot it all in 26 days. When you’re directing yourself and there is very little time you can’t always view what you’ve shot so you got to operate from instinct.
In addition, Vera Farmiga speaks positive words about Dagmara Dominczyk and John Hawkes acting, saying that Dominczyk, who plays Annika, possesses all those qualities that all women want to have. On the other hand, Hawkes who plays her father could have played the pastor or her husband, because he has the capacity to go 30 years.
Unfortunately, Farmiga did not intend to reveal so much about five to six projects that she was close to signing the dotted line.
Higher Ground premiered in January at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival before giving several popular screenings during Tribeca Film Festival in late April and then arrived for the LAFF premiere on June 25 in Los Angeles. The film will be hitting theaters this August.
