Exclusive: Catching Up With Cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry On Sundance Film ‘Superior’
Among the films that played at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and in the U.S. Dramatic Competition was the thriller “Superior” by Erin Vassilopoulos in her directorial debut. The film is based on Vassilopoulos’ 2015 short of the same name starring twin sisters Alessandra and Ani Mesa. The new film takes place over one Halloween weekend in the late 1980s and catches up with twin sisters Vivian (Ani Mesa) and Marion (Alessandra Mesa) after years of estrangement.
Shooting both the short and the feature length film was cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry. An MFA grad from NYU Tisch, Henry has worked on award-winning shorts such as “Cheer Up Baby” and “Superior.” Both of those films played at Sundance. She shot her first feature length film with Jeremy Hersh’s drama, “The Surrogate,” which premiered at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. At the same festival, her cinematography for Kati Skelton’s pilot Lusty Crest won the Special Jury Award for Episodic Pilot. She also shot the award-winning short film, “The Giverny Document,” directed by Ja’Tovia Gary.
BlackFilmandTV.com caught up with Henry as she spoke about her collaboration with Vassilopoulos on the feature length Superior and being a Black Female Cinematographer.
How did you get involved with the project?
Mia Cioffi Henry: So Erin (Vassilopoulos) and I met in film school at NYU grad school. We met on day one and got put into a crew together for our very first project. We became friends and we started collaborating. I shot her film. She shot mine, and we built a rapport over the years and became very good friends. We shot a short called Superior that's about these same sisters that this feature film was based on. We shot that in school, and it went to Sundance in 2015 and then Berlin after that. It did well. We continued to work together. Years later, she came to me, her and Alessandra Mesa, who plays Marian in the film. They had written a feature version that's not based on the short but like a soul sequel. It picks up six years later, where the sisters are and what they're up to. It’s a continuation of the same world and the same characters. They wanted to shoot that. I said, "Oh, of course, you can't do that without me." So here I am.
Is the tone of the first film any similar to the tone of the second film, even though it's not a sequel?
Mia Cioffi Henry: I would say not so much in thought. Certainly in the look, mood and tone. We shot the short on 16 millimeter in upstate New York had a very contained feeling to it. It was a continuation of our style and aesthetic that we've been working on for a number of projects before that. This feature was also shot on 16 and also really puts color, texture, framing movement, and all of that at the forefront of our process. It's a different world. The creators, Erin and I, are older. We’re married, I have a kid and have lived here, I've lived there, and we've kind of coming up with new life experiences. We wanted to make sure that the characters had lived in life experience that was different from when they were teenagers. That story is told from the writing, the costuming and the locations.
The look and color of the film has this 70s feel to it. Some have mentioned David Cronenberg and Brian De Palma. Was that the look you were going for?
Mia Cioffi Henry: Well, I'm not a big horror person myself. I don't watch horror films for fun, but I love making thrillers and dark stuff, or as we call them, creepy movies. You get to use color and tone and mood to a fuller effect. You get to be a little bit more creative. With the references, I love Dressed To Kill. That's probably the only Brian De Palma film I'm really into. I could watch that three times in a row. I think that there's so many great moments in that. It’s more subtle than his other films. But most of our references are a little bit more relaxed.
I think that color and the texture is a lot of our spin. We were really influenced by William Eggleston photograph. That’s our naturalistic version. And then for the color and staging, we'd love Rosemary's Baby. Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert is probably our biggest influence as well as L'Avventura, which is black and white, but in terms of style, field for movement, and framing and blocking. We had a lot of different influences that weren't necessarily in the same genre. I think a lot of people like to say David Lynch or De Palma. We didn't use those as references for this film. For a lot of people, that's their go to reference, especially when you add red in a frame, somebody is going to think of that initially. We kind of came at it from from a little bit of a different angle.
Can you talk about combining your vision with the production design?
Mia Cioffi Henry: The film takes place in October of 1987, specifically. We wanted to lean it to a timelessness aesthetic. When Erin's writing, she really doesn't like technology. Our stuff is set at a time where technology doesn't exist in the way it does now with computers and cell phones. The film takes place in the 80s. We’re both were born in the 80s. Looking at our own childhood photographs and our own experiences, how we color the 80s is a simple version, not like a costume party. We wanted to go for something really subtle, and Maite Perez-Nievas, who did the production design, and Allison Pearce, who did the costumes, they took that same approach. The wardrobe and the set dressing was all up to 1987 I would say. We wanted a mix of things that were from the 60s and 70s, and the 80s. Nobody just decorates their house or fulfills their wardrobe from just like one year. It’s a collection of things; and then being in a small town has a vintage retro Americana feel to it already.
Can you talk about being a Black female cinematographer?
Mia Cioffi Henry: I'm a second generation black cinematographer. So my dad is also a DP and it never occurred to me that there was a color line in the film business. My dad worked primarily in documentary when I was growing up. It occurred to me after I decided that that's what I wanted to do that it was going to be an issue because there was no barrier for entry on equipment and understanding technology and stuff. I grew up with that all around me. In my house, we had a dark room in the basement and there was always lighting equipment or camera equipment that we took for granted. That was just part of part of life, right? When I decided to be a DP, it was a little bit of a learning curve that I was going to come across some issues, some resistance about being a woman, about being black and then have to fight against that or not get jobs because of it.
When I first started out, I had this notion that I just wanted to be a cinematographer, like “Don't act female, Don't act black in front of it. Judge me like you judge anybody. I sort of let that fall away. The longer I work in the business the more I realize how much who I am and what my identity is, factors into my work. When I'm shooting a film, it's from my point of view, in a lot of ways. I bring that into it. I bring my own life experience to my suggestions or my collaboration. I'm a woman and I’m Black, and that's how I exist in the world. That's what I'm going to bring to the picture and I don't want to deny that or ignore it.
I also I feel it's part of my social responsibility to be present and be visible. Make sure people see us. Black women do shoot movies. We are just as capable as anyone else to helm a picture and be behind the camera and run a team. I want to be an example because I didn't have examples growing up. There was a very many black women behind the camera, and I want to make sure that if you can see it you can be at. So I take that seriously.