[Editor’s note: 52 Tuesdays screens at the Quad Cinema in New York. For those elsewhere, the film is available for viewing on Fandor.]
I spoke with director Sophie Hyde this past Tuesday. Well, in New York City ,where I live and produce my podcast, it was Tuesday. In Adelaide, Australia, where the director lives and where she was on the receiving end of our phone call, the calendar said it was Wednesday. So the synchronicity of recording the podcast on the same day of the week that informs her new film was sort of lost. But that’s okay, the film itself was an imperfect experiment. But I think both works resulted in something pretty special. 52 Tuesdays, the story, takes place over the course of fifty-two Tuesdays in the life of young girl, Billie, whose mother, James, is transitioning from a woman to a man. James asks Billie to move in with her father during this one year period of transition and that their visiting day be on Tuesdays for the year. Likewise, during the course of making the movie, the filmmakers structured their production so that they only shot on fifty-two Tuesdays in a row during the course of one year. Even with those restrictions, rather surprisingly, the film has a dynamic and spontaneous energy. When I asked Hyde if she has any regrets about her choice, she told me she loved the film. “I don’t think I’d ever make another film every Tuesday but I certainly love the playfulness of the form. And it allowed me to collaborate with people on a film in an extreme way and that was exciting.”
Listen to Filmwax Radio: Sophie Hyde
