As writer/director Deborah Kampmeier’s much-troubled project Hounddog finally reaches theaters after twelve years in the making, we sat down with the filmmaker to discuss her thoughts about the film and the incredible storm of controversy that has surrounded its release.

The term passion project was really invented for a film like this one. Tell us about your journey to get it made?
It was a twelve-year process and after I finished the script I got it out to cast and managed to get it to Robin [Wright Penn] who became this ferocious ally and I really consider her the Godmother of this film. We were in a situation where we had financing in place for four years in a row that fell away at the eleventh hour each time really around the issue of the rape scene and people wanting it out. I would literally be walking away from $5 million and contracts on the table time and time again because I was just not willing to compromise on that issue.

And then you put Hounddog on hold and made Virgin.
Yeah, after the financing fell through the fourth year in a row I went to Robin and said ‘Look, I have to make my first feature film or I’m going to die!’

Was that reinvigorating for you?
It was. It was fantastic, I mean it was one of those where it was a $65,000 budget and it was on video and a twenty-one day shoot. It was very intense and I had my fifteen-month-old daughter and the baby Bjorn on set the whole time and it was really a wonderful experience. It went on to receive a lot of notice and we were nominated for a couple of Independent Spirit Awards and it was really exciting because I thought ‘well, here we go, now we’ll make Hounddog’ But of course it didn’t facilitate that and it was another four years.

Virgin deals with a lot of the same themes of religion and sexuality. Do you think that you would have made Virgin if you hadn’t had so much trouble getting Hounddog off the ground?
I think I would. I’ve always thought it would be my second film, after Hounddog because it was written afterwards and I really thought it was be a big budget film. When I wrote it there were 40,000 people in the ocean, not 40 people in the Hudson River and wanted it to have a big budget supernatural feel. I love it though because the handheld work that some people objected to be done out of necessity but really worked well in depicting the chaotic inner life of being a teenager. I tend to think of it as my perfect, imperfect first and there was something quite thrilling about really answering only to myself and have that opportunity.

With all the controversy surrounding Hounddog any message you intended the film to carry runs a serious risk of being lost in the noise. What were your pure intentions ten years ago when you first conceived it?
I never set out to make a controversial film or a social commentary, I just wrote this film for my heart and if it touches someone else’s then I would feel very happy about that. It was simply my expression, my art, and as you say I think the controversy, especially at Sundance, really hurt it and people couldn’t see the film that was actually there. I mean it’s a small film but in the midst of it becoming a controversial film addressing social issues I really tried to embrace that and encourage a cultural conversation around the issue of child abuse which is an epidemic in our society. But that was never why I made the film. The film is about taking something poisonous to you and making it into something powerful and good, which is what I was doing. The film is me wrestling with my own shit and trying to turn it into gold. [Laughs] Though I’m not sure that’s the most poetic way of putting it.

So how did it feel to have all that boiled away to the point where all anyone heard was “Dakota Fanning rape movie”?
It was really painful and, you know, I hope someone more intelligent than I can take a stab at explaining the phenomenon that has occurred around this film. You know, why is it called that? What is society’s need to call it that? I don’t really have an answer for that but I think we need to talk about it. Instead of people looking at their own pain they’re projecting their rage into this film. In terms of the issue, what message does it send women about speaking out and breaking the silence when Dakota is so shamed just for telling this story? That’s very disturbing to me and I also found it disturbing that Dakota was never given the opportunity to celebrate what I feel was a remarkable performance.

Of course the flipside that while people are questioning your intentions as a filmmaker and as a person, more people will likely see the film than otherwise might. How do you reconcile that?
Well it’s interesting, after Sundance when I went back into the editing suite I felt it was my job to continue to listen to my voice and focus my vision. Having the criticism and the really negative critical response to the film was hard, but what I came out of Sundance with was…I had women come to me in line in tears thanking me for making the film afterwards. I had women say they came yesterday and brought their thirteen-year-old daughter back today because I thought it was important [for her to see it]. So in the editing room I had the response of real people to really give me courage to keep on trusting myself. Obviously something has happened that is bigger than me and bigger than this film and I have to accept that.

After all the rumor and half-truth that’s been circulated, tell us what the realities of the rape scene were?
It was so technical and it’s funny that when someone gets their head blown off in a movie we don’t think ‘oh my God, did they really just get their head blown off?’ We never rehearsed and had Dakota go through the experience of a rape, instead I had her come through the door twenty times, had her trip on the log twenty times. In the close-up, which is the “rape”, I am literally a foot away from her face going ‘hold your breath…don’t make a sound…ok don’t breathe’ so when we came to edit we had to get rid of my voice and find other sounds to complete the scene. It was extremely technical and after we shot, Dakota was out on the bridge by the creek dancing. She was dancing because she knew she nailed it in a very craft, technical way and it was beautiful. When people start saying she was damaged, it [is] really taking away from her gift and denying her talent.

When you work on a film for as long as you did with this one with so many setbacks, how does it affect your approaching the next project? Do you think, “I’m starting this whole draining process over again?”
I’ve learned so much through this experience and I have had to call upon my friends and colleagues and cry on their shoulders and say ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore’ and then get up the next day and keep working. I just have to keep searching and wrestle down the next script. You know, Hounddog was never supposed to be a controversial film, yet I’m having all this controversy, so [Laughs] I think I’ll make the next one really controversial. Let’s see how far I can challenge myself

You obviously have great passion for women’s stories. How do you feel when you hear people like Jeff Robinov, president of production at Warner Bros. that he thinks they should no longer do films with women in the lead because they don’t sell?
I don’t know what to say when I hear that because I have women at screenings thanking me for telling their stories and maybe we have to make them in a smaller budget until we prove there is an audience and in fact women are starving for their true voices to be up on screen, but they don’t get an opportunity. Instead they get a faux version of themselves on screen. I don’t think there is a conscious campaign to keep women’s voices silent; I just think they’ve been silent for so long that men and even women don’t have the ears to hear them anymore. We need to space to find them again and that needs a lot of support and room to be able to fall and get back up again. But I think it’s really a great time and we’re on the edge of something breaking open. I hope so anyway.

Hounddog Opens in select theaters on Friday September 19th

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