An Interview with Mike Macera, director of 'Alice Heart'

One of the liveliest features that premiered at this year’s Athens International Film and Video Festival was the charming and relatable Alice-Heart, written and directed by Mike Macera. The mumblecore film follows 20-something Alice-Heart (Lissa Carandang-Sweeney) during her final year of college as her life unravels and regrows through gorgeously shot black-and-white vignettes in Philadelphia.

I had the opportunity to interview Macera during the film’s premiere at the Brooklyn Film Festival, where we discussed the film’s genre inspirations, personal influences, and the story’s heartwarming connection between Alice-Heart and Tony (Tony McCall).

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

TREY BARRETT: A large part of what [draws] people in to Alice-Heart is that it feels so natural and looks like somebody's actual life on screen, and a part of that results from the film very clearly residing within the "mumblecore" genre. There's also a couple references to some other mumblecore films throughout [Alice-Heart]. What were some influences behind this film's creation as it relates to mumblecore, and what excites you the most about the genre and being able to create something so unique within it?

MIKE MACERA: So, Alice-Heart came to be...during college. I went to college pretty much at the height of COVID-19, so most of my college experience was online through these, like, Zoom classes. I had a lot of time to myself, in my house where I couldn't really go outside, or I couldn't do it without it being a real risk. I spent a lot of time just watching movies, as cliché as it is. But one of the big genres I got into during that time was mumblecore. I mean, I had always been a fan of Richard Linklater, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, and they had cited [their] influences.

I started reading up on this genre [of] movies and took a deep dive that winter in 2020 and just really started watching as many as I could. By the time I started writing Alice-Heart about a year or so later, I was very ingrained in that genre, and just really wanting to do my own take on it and set it in college. Something [you see in] a lot of those films is very much like "they're in their 20s," and I thought it'd be cool to try one where you're a little younger, like you're on the cusp of your early 20s maybe.

What I always enjoyed about those mumblecore films and what influenced my filmmaking from them was their authenticity. It was such a commitment to relatable storytelling that I had always enjoyed. I would watch those films and just be enamored by moments that would feel like, “oh that's something I would have done, or that's how I feel.” And some of these movies were – I mean they're even older now – but even at the time they were almost 20 years old.

So, I think – I like – the authenticity of those [movies] and the scrappy nature of, “here's some friends, we're gonna all do films together.” They all appear in each other's films, which is something I always really loved. It's like, there's an actor in one, and then in the next movie, he's the sound guy for his friend's film. There's just this community and this authenticity, and it really did feel like anyone could just make a movie and get into a big fest. I mean, it's not as possible now, unfortunately, I think, with how the film festival landscape has changed. But, these people would throw their friends together [for] two weeks and make a movie and get into Sundance or South by Southwest... it really felt very possible [and] very accessible filmmaking.

That's how I approached Alice-Heart, with that similar mentality of “we're going to make an authentic story, I'm going to do it with my friends who I feel I can be the most authentic with."

TB: So, it sounds like you're already in this mumblecore realm of filmmaking right now. Would you say that is accurate?

MM: Yeah, I would say especially for this film. I don't know if it's something I want to continue with, at least in terms of "20-somethings in college." I definitely have since written scripts that have expanded into different ideas, different settings, different age groups of people. But, I think I am very much ingrained in that improvisational “make stuff with your friends” mentality, and that's how I always plan to operate. So in that regard, yes; maybe in content, I am looking to expand in the next project.

TB: Speaking to that improvisation aspect of it, you also mentioned that [lead actress] Lissa [Carandang-Sweeney] served as a writer and producer for this film. Tell me a little bit about how it was to work with her in such a close capacity, especially telling this more intimate story about this 20-something-year-old in college navigating this weird transitionary period in her life, while also speaking to that amount of improvisation.

MM: In terms of working with Lissa, she's great. She's like a forever player. I think in our collaborations, we've talked about wanting to keep doing stuff together…

Lissa, especially once we got to the set, was bringing a lot more to the character than I had originally written or even anticipated. Especially in terms of the character's identity, to their Filipino heritage, to them living up to this immigrant standard. That's all what Lissa implemented into the character and loosely based on her own life too.

Once we got to the set, it kind of became a mix of the two [types] of personalities that we wanted to bring to Alice-Heart. It was such a great collaboration. From the pre-production to the production into post, she's been stellar to work with and she really brought this character into [her] own and did so much more to it than I would have.

Same with every character – even Adam, who plays Lyman, the kind-of-shifty, on-and-off-again boyfriend. You know, that was a role that in the script is written to just be, like, so mean-spirited. I think Adam wanted to bring a little more humanity to it, to make it a little more layered and maybe get people to be a little more conflicted as to what kind of guy this [is]. I think most people take it as “he's a sleaze bag,” but I think it adds a little bit more. He wanted to add a little more of a nuance to why he's sleazy. I think he had described it to me as bringing a little more “educated preppiness” to the role that I think gave it a different layer. So, we did that with a lot of the characters, especially Lissa for Alice-Heart, and I think it was all very successful and collaborative.

TB: I would definitely say that what you just described resonated a lot on screen, especially with how the two actors portrayed those characters – I really did get that preppy attitude from Lyman as well. What were some of the main [points of reference] that you would make to your own life in relation to this story?

MM: I would say the main one was being online in college. That was very, very weird and really turned me off from college education. I already had issues with classes and stuff, but especially when they went online and it was not any cheaper – and it's not like the education got any better – I think [that] was [a] big source of frustration and influenced the writing a lot.

I was in a lucky position to not have to pay for college, but I had also felt like I didn't want my family paying for it. And I wanted to drop out a lot, but also did not have another option – I didn't really know what kind of job to get. I would look, and just be frightened... So it was this kind of perfect storm, I would say. I mean, even that opening scene in the film, that was based on a real class I had. I had this writing class where the teacher was like, “No laptops.” And as a writer, all I write with is my laptop. I cannot read my own handwriting. I hate writing penmanship and cursive, and I'm just a bad physical writer. I love typing. So I was just so frustrated, you know. So I think that was a lot of it, just that frustration of the college experience.

[The] flip side of it [is] also the the fonder memories of college, which was a lot of the other parts of the film, [like] going to these ridiculous parties. And they're kind of not great, but you have a friend there that you can bond [with] over how silly it is. Or going to an art gallery and seeing your buddy's work. In the film, the art gallery we shot at, the photo gallery, that [is] a real gallery that Tony, played by Tony [McCall], would present his work at. I would go there and see his work and buy [it]. So, I would say it was a mix of the two sides of that coin, of having that not-great [educational] experience, but also having that very good social community. We were all friendly from Temple University, so it was a very tight-knit bubble of North Philly [where] we had a lot of good memories.

TB: Speaking on Alice-Heart and Tony's relationship with Alice-Heart, I think that is one of the key elements of the film that resonated with me, because I really love their dynamic together. What inspired you, and also Lissa, in creating this dynamic between Tony and Alice-Heart? Was there intentionality behind making them artists in their own ways, because as we see in the film, Alice-Heart is really into writing and Tony is really into photography. How did that shape how these two characters interacted with one another?

MM: Again, it was very inspired by real life. Me and Tony have been friends for years going to college. Lissa went to Drexel University, and we actually met her on a film set [my co-producer Zach, for his senior thesis]. The three of us were acting in that project, and our roles were [that] we were part of a band. So we were band mates, [and] we would hang out. We would act in every scene together, and then we would also just hang out while holding [or while] we were waiting. We really all hit it off together. So I wrote [the relationship] with Lissa and Tony in mind, and I wrote that specifically to be a platonic friendship story because that was how I was feeling about just getting to know these people as very good friends.

I think going into that dynamic, to answer your question, it was always from the beginning meant to just be about, “Let's explore a really good friendship.” And maybe we'll tease some intimacy, will-they-won't-they stuff, because that inevitably happens when you have a man and a woman being friends on camera. I think, ultimately, that was something that was never really challenged on set; it was always going to be like a friendship. We were never going to have them commit to anything romantic or intensely intimate beyond their friendship. 

And in terms of them being artists, again, that's just very similar to what our lives are. Tony is a photographer in real life – he has his work displayed. And then Lissa, that's a little more embellished, or more on my end of things, as Alice-Heart wants to be a writer. So that was, I think, bringing myself into it. Making them artists, I think, made sense. I always like to write characters who are artists, because I feel like that's something I can write easily.

[Having] them both be artists in their own way, the visual and the written mediums… they both inspire each other's art. Tony's character ends up taking pictures of her. Alice-Heart ends up writing things based on her life that she experiences with Tony, and Tony pushes her to write about what's happening in her life…they both have that push and pull for each other.

TB: Speaking outside of the characters themselves, one of the other things I really picked up on in Alice-Heart is just how amazingly shot Philadelphia was in this film. I know that you have some roots within Philly. Before I ask this question, the train shots in this movie are just so amazing – I loved seeing how the train moved on the frame... I had to give you kudos for that. But speaking about Philly itself, what sort of draws you to portraying Philly in the way in which you did in Alice-Heart?

MM: I have to obviously give credit immediately to Matt Connelly, my DP, who is the reason that Philly looks the way it does in that movie. I certainly had some ideas and some visions for things, but he was the one who brought all that to life. I'm actually in my childhood home right now – but I'm born and raised in South Jersey, so Philly has always been that immediate big city for me. Trips to Philly were like little occasions, and I went to college there at Temple University.... I wrote the script to be set in Philly and to reflect on my time in Philadelphia. I think it's a city that is quite under the radar when it comes to movies.

I feel like you either get New York or LA or sometimes Chicago. I think when you get Philly, it's like a few specific movies. You get the Rocky films or The Sixth Sense. There's not, like, a whole lot of just indie run and gun stuff going on here...

I think bringing that mumblecore New York or Chicago energy to Philly felt really right, and felt right for what Philly is to me, which is kind of a gritty city in its own right... a run and gun kind of place.

It still feels affordable in a way, or doable, as opposed to… I live in New York now, which has a reputation of being expensive and overwhelming, which it is. So when meeting with Matt for the first time, we had our first meeting on this, he pitched to me, “Do you see this in black and white?” Immediately, I said yes.

TB: I noticed there was this big Gen Z influence to it; it really felt current. It could go back to this mumblecore feeling to it, especially [because it’s] about 20-something-year-olds, and [because] you came to college during COVID-19, and how that relates to the film as well. [Did the] influence of Gen Z have any effect on how the film was made or in the dialogue of the characters?

MM: I think one of the things that I would be scared about – especially because I was working with so many people my age – was to never take ourselves too seriously.

I think that is a big Gen Z thing overall, at least with my group. Don't ever take yourself too seriously or else you're gonna get made fun of for thinking you're awesome and thinking you're the best. We would go into set, and there would never be a day where, if a scene that was written dramatically came out funny, we wouldn't embrace that, or vice versa. We would never go into it as if we're making a work of art. We're just making this movie for friends, and we're gonna see what we can do with it.

I certainly felt like I had something to prove, but I didn't go to set acting that way. It was a jokey set. This was a group of people I had known for five or six years. Every day was mostly full of inside jokes, laughing, and trying to just get through the day and go on time while seeing [with] each scene, “Can we make this as funny as possible? What else can we do with these characters without making them total cartoons?” A lot of that's in the writing, too. I avoided any kind of pop culture references. I didn't want to date ourselves too much.

In terms of the slang, I [permitted] whatever the actors would say. There's a scene that always gets a lot of laughs that I always think is funny, where Tony daps up Alice-Heart and calls her “big slime” or something, which is not in the script. And I'm like, “Well, it sounds current, let's do it.” I think that appeal to being modern came with that striving to not take ourselves too seriously, to just do who we are. I'm sure maybe 10 or 15 years from now, people would watch Alice-Heart, and go “It feels dated, it's such a Gen Z movie.” But we wanted to keep it as fresh as we know. I think we hopefully achieve that just by not taking it too seriously, always just trying to keep it light, funny – and serious when it was earned. But never too dark.

TB: I really liked that energy that you bring to filmmaking and the craft of this film specifically... I was in the Athena Cinema before you premiered the film and there was a lot of high energy there. Speaking about film festivals as a whole, your film has been at the Brooklyn Film Festival, Slamdance, and AIFVF. How has it been traveling across the country with the crew and presenting such an intimate film like Alice-Heart?

MM: It's been a life changing year. This is my first ever festival run. It has been so extraordinary. Right before Brooklyn, we even went back to California and we played at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, which was great. I'm someone who, for the first 20 or so years of my life, didn't leave the Northeast. So this year, going to LA for the first time in my life multiple times, seeing the Midwest, and going down South has been awesome – very expensive as well. But also, just to meet these filmmakers, to connect at all these different events and experience different towns and cities.

These film fests have just been a good excuse to travel and see different parts of the world. I would have probably not [come] to Athens, Ohio had I not got invited to come to the film festival. I never even heard of it. But to experience it and to be there, I was like, “Oh, this place is awesome.” I want to try and make a future movie there. I fell in love with the landscape, the theater, and the community out there. I would have never known about it otherwise. I think it's twofold. It's great to network with all these filmmakers, and it's also just great to see the world, to see other communities and expand my horizons with movies, location, and scenery. Every place we go, I want to shoot a new movie there. It has definitely expanded my view on [things and] it's helped with my writing a lot too, just wanting to write new characters, new perspectives, new environments.

It's been such a whirlwind of a year. It's been so fun, and I can't wait to keep showing Alice-Heart places across the world.

TB: So now that Alice-Heart, your first feature film, is complete, on its festival run, doing really well, and getting a lot of critical acclaim, what's next in store for you? Are there any kind of collaborations or projects on the radar for you in the future?

MM: I'm gonna be busy. It's gonna be a busy year. We have another project coming up, honestly, that we just got a green light for, so me and Lissa are back on the team. It's another script I wrote, and we've just secured funding for this new script that we wrote with some actors that we met on a set – very Alice-Heart-core – to be shot in Bar Harbor, Maine in the fall. I'm going on a location scout this weekend to check that out. We have some generous private funding, and it looks like our next feature film will be shot this September and October. So that'll be next for me.

Follow the Alice-Heart website and Instagram page to see where the film will go next.

-Trey