Interview (Part 1): Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann
An in-depth conversation with the co-writers and co-directors of the movie Sister Aimee which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
The very first movie I saw at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was Sister Aimee. It was a 9:30AM screening on a Monday morning. I am not a morning person, so the fact I was so taken by this film should tell you something about how entertaining it is.
In watching the post-screening Q&A with the film’s co-writers and co-directors Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann, I was so struck by the story behind the story of how this project came to be, I decided I needed to interview the pair. I got in touch with their manager Lee Stobby which led to a 45-minute conversation which I am happy to share over the course of this week.
Today in Part 1 of a six-part series, Marie and Samantha talk about their backgrounds, how fate brought them together in film school, and how they write projects together as a couple:
Scott Myers: First of all, congratulations on the movie Sister Aimee and also, too, I see recently where you’ve signed with ICM Partners, is that right?
Samantha Buck: Yes.
Scott: Was that after the festival?
Samantha: After the festival, yes.
Scott: Very good. Let’s talk about your respective backgrounds. Now, Sam, a part of your interest has been documentary filmmaking. In fact, you directed the Peabody Award‑winning doc Best Kept Secret and that’s a recipient of a Sundance Institute’s Documentary Fund grant. How did you get into documentaries and then start moving into scripted filmmaking?
Samantha: It started with acting. I’ve been a professional actor for many, many years. I was on a television show (Big Apple) with a wonderful showrunner and writer, David Milch. He made everybody take his writing course. He did these writing workshops.
I did that, and Milch called me in his office a few months later. He’s like, “Listen. You should be behind the camera. You should be writing.” I was a young actor who wasn’t confident enough at the time.
There weren’t many examples at that point of actresses that were moving from in front of the camera to behind the camera. There’s Jodie Foster, basically, that was it, who’s a great example. I think I wasn’t confident enough to go for it at that point.
Then a few years after that show, I finally had financial stability and so, I had this opportunity to go down to DC to the March for Women’s Lives because my mother was friends with Ann Richards and Molly Ivins and all these incredible women. Instinctively, I thought, “Oh, I should bring a camera.”
Going behind the camera, that move did happen organically. Very quickly once I was into documentary film making, the desire to want to write and to work with actors, it was always there. How I was approaching doc film making was very verite, Frederick Wiseman‑esque approach where you were basically writing in the edit room with 100 hours of footage.
You’re outlining and writing the screenplay of the film with the footage. I applied to Columbia Film School. I got in when I was working on Best Kept Secret. I’m very happy that I did, because I walked into Screenwriting One, and I met Marie Schlingmann.
Scott: Marie, let’s talk about your background. Photography, gender and sexuality studies, political campaign ads, and I think you’re based out of Germany.
Marie Schlingmann: Yes, I am German. I grew up in Germany. I’ve always had a knack for writing. I’ve always loved films. I didn’t go into it immediately. I did my undergrad in Berlin, which was gender studies and cultural studies and then later American studies.
During that time, I very quickly was more interested in doing photography on the side. I interned and then later worked at a very good production company in Berlin who did international co‑productions. I was much more interested in that.
Funnily enough, I think English is working better with my creative brain, my writer’s brain. I never wrote screenplays, maybe a few short stories, but that’s it, in German. I only wrote them in English.
It was very clear to me that at some point after my undergrad studies and working in this production company that I wanted to do this, and I wanted to do it in the States. I applied to film schools, and I ended up at Columbia, which was good.
Samantha: Fortuitous.
Scott: Were you both in the screenwriting concentration there?
Marie: Basically, directing, screenwriting is very mixed. I think I came in officially as a screenwriter, and I think you came in…
Samantha: I came in as a director.
Marie: …as a director. You can focus on one thing, but you don’t have to. Both of us chose Columbia because it gives you the opportunity to do writing and directing in equal measures.
Scott: Did you start working together on projects when you’re at Columbia?
Samantha: Yeah. Very early on. I’m not joking, Screenwriting One. Remember, you brought something in. I knew I want to work with this woman. I need to know her. We started meeting right away outside of class and shared each other’s work. We gave each other notes.
Again, it happened organically, where I was interested in what she was doing. She was interested in what I was doing. We both recognize that when we came together, it felt like something even more potent was happening in that combination. We started co‑writing and working on each other’s short films and collaborating from the get‑go.
Marie: I think that a little bit into Columbia, we started to actually write together. Then obviously, while you’re in a film school setting, you have to be on your own a little bit because that’s how they grade you in things. After Columbia, we’ve only written together.
Scott: You’re a couple.
Samantha: Yeah, and we’re married.
Scott: How does that work for you in terms of division of labor? Just strictly about screenwriting, how do you go about working that as a couple?
Marie: It is the one thing that we always say is, every couple has their issues. Ours is we have to sometimes remind ourselves not to let the work seep into everything we do. Obviously, as a screenwriter and as a writer and a director, it’s always on your mind. You’re always thinking about something and talking about it.
That’s our bag to carry as a couple. As partners for the writing process, it’s great. It’s wonderful. We have a pretty set process at this point that usually starts with us brainstorming together for quite some time and then going into our corners or wherever and doing our own research, coming back together.
Then once we’re ready to lay it out, we work for a few weeks, depending on the project, together in front of our board, put it all up there and really structure the screenplays. We’ll talk it all out as much as we possibly can. Then Sam, she’s a very fast writer.
Samantha: I vomit, basically. [laughs]
Marie: I am not a fast writer, so that’s good. She’s very fast. She usually goes in first. She lays it down and moves as fast as she can. I come in behind her and fill it out.
The good thing about it is that by the time Sam stumbles upon a problem, because obviously, there’s always problems the second you start putting it on the page. No matter how long you’ve structured it. She can say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We have to stop. We have to look at this. We have to figure it out.” We stop. We do it. Then we go back to our respective places.
In the same way, I can point to things that might have worked when it was a very fast‑written scene with XXX here kind of stuff and can say, “No, when you build it up, this isn’t working.” She can come back. We figure it out. By the time we’re through an entire screenplay, it is almost two passes of a script.
Samantha: I’m sure, if our cat could speak, it would be like, “No, let me give you the inside scoop. They drive me nuts when they’re working.” I think it’s part of the DNA in terms of our relationship, working‑wise, creative‑wise, and romantic‑wise.
I don’t know how people who aren’t married…I don’t know how they do it. You know how it is. It can be so all‑consuming in moment. We get an idea at 3:00 AM. We’re right there to wake the other person up and not let them sleep either.
During the 1920s up until her death in 1944, Aimee Simple McPherson was a well-known celebrity, as an evangelist and faith healer based out of Los Angeles. For background, read the L.A. Times obituary from September 1944. Here is a short video featuring Aimee Simple McPherson:
The movie Sister Aimee is a delightful mash-up of genres: Drama, Comedy, Mystery, Road Picture, even Musical. Tomorrow in Part 2, Sam and Marie discuss how they became interested in the story of Sister Aimee and in particular her mysterious disappearance at the height of her fame which sparked the inspiration for their film.
