"Sweet East: Lillian in Wonderland" Director Sean Price Williams: The ideal set is one where everyone is happy [Director's Interview Vol. 479]

Cinematographer Sean Price Williams has been a driving force in the New York independent film scene. He has shot over 120 films, including feature films, short films, TV series, and music videos, including the Safdie brothers' " Fuck You, God " (2014) and " Good Time " (2017). His directorial debut is "Sweet East: Lillian in Wonderland." It depicts America, where division and ideological chaos are accelerating, from the perspective of a young girl, as if traveling through a wonderland. How did Director Sean create this film? We spoke to him.

Summary of "Sweet East: Lillian in Wonderland"

Lillian, a high school senior from South Carolina, is on a school trip to Washington DC with her boyfriend Troy, her best friend Tessa, and classmates including Annabelle, who always teases Troy. A somewhat melancholic Lillian watches her classmates having fun with cold eyes. At night, when the group sneaks out to a karaoke bar, they get caught up in a mass shooting by a young man obsessed with conspiracy theories. Led by Caleb, who is there and dressed in a flashy punk outfit, they escape into the bar's bathroom, where they find a "secret door" behind a large mirror. It leads to an underground passage...

Index

• Where is Wonderland?
• To have multifaceted
• The ideal workplace is one where everyone is happy

Where is Wonderland?

Q: Had you always thought about making a film with America as its central theme?

Williams: That's a difficult question. This is because today is the first interview since the Trump administration took over, so my way of thinking is a little different from before. My screenwriter Nick and I were writing the script around 2015-2017, a time when political transformation was occurring. As we exchanged ideas about incorporating these things into the film, what we both wanted to portray in common was political conflict structures, divisions, and macho patriotic motifs. I think that's easy to understand because we're living in this era now. Also, when we were shooting this film, it was under the Biden administration, which was in a sense "lukewarm," but we deliberately avoided explicitly mentioning the administration or the era in the film.

"Sweet East: Lillian in Wonderland" © 2023 THE SWEET EAST PRODUCTIONS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Q: This movie is often compared to "Alice in Wonderland," and watching it makes me feel that America is truly a wonderland. Is this a recent phenomenon? Or has it been around for a long time?

Williams: For me, America as Wonderland is the image of the West. The West is very old in many ways and has not yet completely moved on from that. The "Alice in Wonderland" analogy has been pointed out before, but it seems to fit perfectly now. I often use the analogy of this film as "Alice in Wonderland" now. But for Nick and me, it is the opposite: a boring America. An America that is stuck in the past and has not changed, the opposite of the America of the frontier. And no nonsense works here. It's a bit of a strict, old America.

To have multifaceted