Like A Fire That Consumes All of It
Trailer (2 minutes) |
Film (40 minutes) |
WRITE UP ON NOBUDGE
Over the course of a year, a young woman spends time with a group of friends. “Like A Fire That Consumes All Of It,” directed by Juli Wert, is a docu-fictional, mumblecore featurette capturing the mundane ups and in-betweens of one’s mid-twenties. Set in Philadelphia, Juli and her camera venture into her everyday. We watch her behind the counter at work, join the friend group’s hangouts, and rest on the dashboard as she drives around town while voice messages play. Observing mostly when the camera is in her hands or rested on a nearby flat surface, acoustic interludes bring us from one moment to the next. Although seemingly nonchalant, the film, its main character (the filmmaker herself), and her group of friends, capture a feeling of angst specific to this early period in adulthood. -JM.
Over the course of a year, a young woman spends time with a group of friends. “Like A Fire That Consumes All Of It,” directed by Juli Wert, is a docu-fictional, mumblecore featurette capturing the mundane ups and in-betweens of one’s mid-twenties. Set in Philadelphia, Juli and her camera venture into her everyday. We watch her behind the counter at work, join the friend group’s hangouts, and rest on the dashboard as she drives around town while voice messages play. Observing mostly when the camera is in her hands or rested on a nearby flat surface, acoustic interludes bring us from one moment to the next. Although seemingly nonchalant, the film, its main character (the filmmaker herself), and her group of friends, capture a feeling of angst specific to this early period in adulthood. -JM.
⋆｡°✩
"A poem is good based on it's last line - and this is a good poem"
- Jack Sterling (Artist/Musician)
⋆｡°✩
Moments in Time with Filmmaker and Artist Juli Wert
written by Lila Miller
Juli Wert is no stranger to the atmospheric. Amber eyes always seeing, she turns her camera back onto the world she knows best, the people she loves that love her back, and those on the fringe, Doing It Themselves, everyday.
Juli is a filmmaker, a bright soul, capturing moments in time in a visceral way that stays with you, long after the film is over. She filmed “Like A Fire That Consumes All of It” in 2022, but has just begun releasing it to the public and having a show for it. She recently held a viewing party at Laundrette Records in Philadelphia, PA. and is ready to show it to the world.
We got a chance to chat early this Spring via Zoom, where I picked her brain about the film and was ready to be consumed by it all. It feels almost like a diary.
“I just love having a little camera that shoots everything I see. And I just feel such a love for all these people in my life. And the more I want to shoot them. I was like, ‘what if I just keep making these little sessions, but just longer, but if I use the same characters, and the same locations and it turned into a movie?’” Juli said.
The film has both scripted and unscripted elements. “Like A Fire That Consumes All of It” begins and alternates with voiceover calling and an eventual voicemail between Juli and her best friend Annie, which was part of the scripted elements and overall narrative arc.
“I tried to keep calling her throughout the movie. And she doesn't answer- that was one of the more scripted elements. But really, when I was sitting there, in the beginning, I really was trying to talk to anyone and nobody was answering. And it was just kind of funny. But then I was like, ‘what if this is the idea?’ Because I feel like the movie kind of boils down to the idea that sometimes love is closer or farther, and it's just how you experience that and how you search for it. And continue to reach for it,” she said.
Between that, we get a love letter to youth: punk rock house shows, riding in cars with friends, conversations over bonfires, the transience of nostalgic moments, and the art of figuring it all out.
The film has a combination of scripted and unscripted elements- there are scenes that depict a very specific moment in time, with the film functioning almost like a time capsule. There are people in the film drunk that have been sober for years now. People are always changing. Juli has friends or lovers in the film she is no longer with, and there is a beauty to preserving art for art’s sake. As I watch the film I wonder is it art imitating life, or life imitating art, or some secret unnamable evolving relationship between those two questions?
“Art is life. You know, it's like it. I think it's the same thing sometimes. And it's just that the intention that you're looking at it is what makes it beautiful. It's almost like a poem,” Juli said.
The film does feel like a visual poem. Picturesque quintessentially northern aspects- the film is shot in Philly and Boston respectively, over a period of about six months, from early April to late July of 2022.
“I started at the beginning of the year and ended around summer. You can see in the beginning of the film, people are kind of wearing coats and stuff like that... It's so cool reframing it like this. Because the further away it gets, [it feels] like someone else made it almost. And now it's just- you're talking about it. So real and professional, and I'm getting nervous,” she said.
Making art is a courageous act. There is a humanness, a willingness to be exposed, a ‘DIY ‘til I die’ aspect that not everyone has the teeth for. It can be hard for anyone to pull back the layers of nuance and carefully curated bullshit to show the gritty realities of life- so much is unpolished and not pruned to perfection, like life.
Juli shot “Like A Fire…” on a Nikon D 5500 that she has been using since 2017. In spontaneous shooting it can be difficult to ensure proper lighting, but Juli knows her tools.
“It's just such a familiar thing in my hands. And the more I get to know it, I know its limitations. So at this point, it only shoots 1080p. It's not that good, you know, but I use it like a camcorder. Yeah, and it's light enough and quick draw enough where I can have it on me,” she said.
In the bonfire scene, Juli’s boyfriend at the time objects to being filmed.
“Did you have a lot of people that were like, ‘Don't put me in your fucking movie?’...What is it like dating somebody who doesn't want to be the subject?” I asked.
“Just him, but then he plays guitar so beautifully, you know?…. It’s kind of disappointing…I’ve just got to look outwards. Or I do a lot of filming when I'm home alone, too,” Juli said.
Parts of her film feel almost voyeuristic- we get shots of Juli dancing alone in her home, in the kitchen, playing guitar in her bedroom, it almost feels like being a fly on the wall of a day in her life.
“I feel like [my friend] James at one point said, ‘Sometimes it gets shockingly third person.’ I really liked that. It’s usually a first person narrative. I did go for a switch because I wanted the character of myself that I was filming. I wanted the viewer to know that they were the camera. But then [I] also was a character in some ways, but it's harder to shoot yourself. Or when you're in a group of people. Sometimes you can try to convince someone else to hold the camera, but it never really works out as well as it does.
“In the wine party scene, the two of them were like my movie buddies. They knew what they were doing and then holding the camera too. That's another moment where he's like, “stop filming me” and the reason I convinced him to hold the camera. It all became so self referential,” she said.
I touch upon how the film feels very “Slacker”- A Richard Linklater film from 1990. I can’t put my finger on why but Juli knows what I mean instantly.
“I can one up you with that. Richard Linklater, his first film that he ever made was in college and it's called ‘It’s Impossible to Learn How to Plow by Reading Books’. And it was the movie that I was thinking most of- in being allowed to make something like this. And it's just him in college, just filming random conversations with him and his buddies. A lot of it is him walking away from the camera. But it's a pretty little frame, and Daniel Johnston's in it a little bit because they were the same age growing up together. And it's him just shooting everything and trying to make a narrative out of himself moving through the space, but it's really loosey goosey- and it's just like, ‘oh, yeah, I can do this too.’ It's kind of a little bit navel gazing it feels, but then, no. If you remove yourself a little bit you can become your own character,” Juli said.
Why should people check out “Like A Fire That Consumes All of It?” I ask her.
“Because it's just an easy way to peer into others' lives. And to be able to understand that you’re allowed to do the things, you can. And everything has meaning,” she said.
Juli has some advice for people wanting to get into filmmaking for themselves.
“You just have to finish something. You just have to do the tiniest little thing in the world. And then just keep going at it, just keep hacking at it. And like the Duplass brothers said, it's like you make this tiny little thing with no money, and then there's a single golden moment in it. And then you take that golden moment and see how much bigger you can make it, then that's also a project where there's going to be this tiny little moment that's the best thing in it. And then you make that bigger. You just have to keep making things and you'll just get better and better. And it'll take forever. And then you just keep doing it,” Juli said.
Several months after this interview at the end of May, Juli held her first film screening at Laundrette Records. The experience was emotionally charged for Juli.
“The show went really well but it was pretty emotional to watch. My loved ones came and had good feedback that made me feel very proud. It was difficult to see the life I used to live, my old house, the old jokes we told each other, but I was able to see how much I have grown and come into myself since filming two years ago.”
“Change is constant, but it is so nice to have these moments so well preserved. I think this film will continue to grow more beautiful, the older it gets. The community response has been so sweet and kind and I am excited to keep sharing personal art. Launderette Records also is so near and dear to my heart, big props to Mike Vee for always being supportive and open to my weird DIY cinema. We are already planning on having a Third Variety show sometime late summer or early fall so stay tuned in,” she said.
written by Lila Miller
Juli Wert is no stranger to the atmospheric. Amber eyes always seeing, she turns her camera back onto the world she knows best, the people she loves that love her back, and those on the fringe, Doing It Themselves, everyday.
Juli is a filmmaker, a bright soul, capturing moments in time in a visceral way that stays with you, long after the film is over. She filmed “Like A Fire That Consumes All of It” in 2022, but has just begun releasing it to the public and having a show for it. She recently held a viewing party at Laundrette Records in Philadelphia, PA. and is ready to show it to the world.
We got a chance to chat early this Spring via Zoom, where I picked her brain about the film and was ready to be consumed by it all. It feels almost like a diary.
“I just love having a little camera that shoots everything I see. And I just feel such a love for all these people in my life. And the more I want to shoot them. I was like, ‘what if I just keep making these little sessions, but just longer, but if I use the same characters, and the same locations and it turned into a movie?’” Juli said.
The film has both scripted and unscripted elements. “Like A Fire That Consumes All of It” begins and alternates with voiceover calling and an eventual voicemail between Juli and her best friend Annie, which was part of the scripted elements and overall narrative arc.
“I tried to keep calling her throughout the movie. And she doesn't answer- that was one of the more scripted elements. But really, when I was sitting there, in the beginning, I really was trying to talk to anyone and nobody was answering. And it was just kind of funny. But then I was like, ‘what if this is the idea?’ Because I feel like the movie kind of boils down to the idea that sometimes love is closer or farther, and it's just how you experience that and how you search for it. And continue to reach for it,” she said.
Between that, we get a love letter to youth: punk rock house shows, riding in cars with friends, conversations over bonfires, the transience of nostalgic moments, and the art of figuring it all out.
The film has a combination of scripted and unscripted elements- there are scenes that depict a very specific moment in time, with the film functioning almost like a time capsule. There are people in the film drunk that have been sober for years now. People are always changing. Juli has friends or lovers in the film she is no longer with, and there is a beauty to preserving art for art’s sake. As I watch the film I wonder is it art imitating life, or life imitating art, or some secret unnamable evolving relationship between those two questions?
“Art is life. You know, it's like it. I think it's the same thing sometimes. And it's just that the intention that you're looking at it is what makes it beautiful. It's almost like a poem,” Juli said.
The film does feel like a visual poem. Picturesque quintessentially northern aspects- the film is shot in Philly and Boston respectively, over a period of about six months, from early April to late July of 2022.
“I started at the beginning of the year and ended around summer. You can see in the beginning of the film, people are kind of wearing coats and stuff like that... It's so cool reframing it like this. Because the further away it gets, [it feels] like someone else made it almost. And now it's just- you're talking about it. So real and professional, and I'm getting nervous,” she said.
Making art is a courageous act. There is a humanness, a willingness to be exposed, a ‘DIY ‘til I die’ aspect that not everyone has the teeth for. It can be hard for anyone to pull back the layers of nuance and carefully curated bullshit to show the gritty realities of life- so much is unpolished and not pruned to perfection, like life.
Juli shot “Like A Fire…” on a Nikon D 5500 that she has been using since 2017. In spontaneous shooting it can be difficult to ensure proper lighting, but Juli knows her tools.
“It's just such a familiar thing in my hands. And the more I get to know it, I know its limitations. So at this point, it only shoots 1080p. It's not that good, you know, but I use it like a camcorder. Yeah, and it's light enough and quick draw enough where I can have it on me,” she said.
In the bonfire scene, Juli’s boyfriend at the time objects to being filmed.
“Did you have a lot of people that were like, ‘Don't put me in your fucking movie?’...What is it like dating somebody who doesn't want to be the subject?” I asked.
“Just him, but then he plays guitar so beautifully, you know?…. It’s kind of disappointing…I’ve just got to look outwards. Or I do a lot of filming when I'm home alone, too,” Juli said.
Parts of her film feel almost voyeuristic- we get shots of Juli dancing alone in her home, in the kitchen, playing guitar in her bedroom, it almost feels like being a fly on the wall of a day in her life.
“I feel like [my friend] James at one point said, ‘Sometimes it gets shockingly third person.’ I really liked that. It’s usually a first person narrative. I did go for a switch because I wanted the character of myself that I was filming. I wanted the viewer to know that they were the camera. But then [I] also was a character in some ways, but it's harder to shoot yourself. Or when you're in a group of people. Sometimes you can try to convince someone else to hold the camera, but it never really works out as well as it does.
“In the wine party scene, the two of them were like my movie buddies. They knew what they were doing and then holding the camera too. That's another moment where he's like, “stop filming me” and the reason I convinced him to hold the camera. It all became so self referential,” she said.
I touch upon how the film feels very “Slacker”- A Richard Linklater film from 1990. I can’t put my finger on why but Juli knows what I mean instantly.
“I can one up you with that. Richard Linklater, his first film that he ever made was in college and it's called ‘It’s Impossible to Learn How to Plow by Reading Books’. And it was the movie that I was thinking most of- in being allowed to make something like this. And it's just him in college, just filming random conversations with him and his buddies. A lot of it is him walking away from the camera. But it's a pretty little frame, and Daniel Johnston's in it a little bit because they were the same age growing up together. And it's him just shooting everything and trying to make a narrative out of himself moving through the space, but it's really loosey goosey- and it's just like, ‘oh, yeah, I can do this too.’ It's kind of a little bit navel gazing it feels, but then, no. If you remove yourself a little bit you can become your own character,” Juli said.
Why should people check out “Like A Fire That Consumes All of It?” I ask her.
“Because it's just an easy way to peer into others' lives. And to be able to understand that you’re allowed to do the things, you can. And everything has meaning,” she said.
Juli has some advice for people wanting to get into filmmaking for themselves.
“You just have to finish something. You just have to do the tiniest little thing in the world. And then just keep going at it, just keep hacking at it. And like the Duplass brothers said, it's like you make this tiny little thing with no money, and then there's a single golden moment in it. And then you take that golden moment and see how much bigger you can make it, then that's also a project where there's going to be this tiny little moment that's the best thing in it. And then you make that bigger. You just have to keep making things and you'll just get better and better. And it'll take forever. And then you just keep doing it,” Juli said.
Several months after this interview at the end of May, Juli held her first film screening at Laundrette Records. The experience was emotionally charged for Juli.
“The show went really well but it was pretty emotional to watch. My loved ones came and had good feedback that made me feel very proud. It was difficult to see the life I used to live, my old house, the old jokes we told each other, but I was able to see how much I have grown and come into myself since filming two years ago.”
“Change is constant, but it is so nice to have these moments so well preserved. I think this film will continue to grow more beautiful, the older it gets. The community response has been so sweet and kind and I am excited to keep sharing personal art. Launderette Records also is so near and dear to my heart, big props to Mike Vee for always being supportive and open to my weird DIY cinema. We are already planning on having a Third Variety show sometime late summer or early fall so stay tuned in,” she said.
