The Pan Eros Film Festival sat down with the director of Persephone Returns, Ursinae Vespéral, for a discussion on nature, filmmaking, and the importance of ritual. Excerpts of the interview can be seen in the Exhibition Filmmaker Spotlight from this year! Full interview is below.
Interviewed by Brodin Petrichor
Transcription by Keri Grassl-Ziegler
PEFF: Hello, Ursinae, good to see you again. You’ve been with us every year and you continue to turn out amazing content that we can showcase, starting with The Kettle in our first year and then Honeydew in our second year and then Satin in our third year and then On Bonding in our fourth year and now we have Persephone Returns. Ursinae, would you like to briefly reintroduce yourself?
Ursinae: Hi. I’m a Canadian filmmaker, performer, and visual artist and I’m trying to explore all the visual poetry we can do with porn.
PEFF: I love this film just visually and I want to say that it fits with a theme that was unintentional but ended up being the case with the exhibition showcase that we have this year. It’s showing there’s a lot of nature, a lot of plant life, and how we commune with the plant life around us.
Some of it is very soft, like dried petals with wax play. Others are more conventional symbolic storytelling of a tale that we’re familiar with such as yours, “Persephone Returns.” And then there’s one of a man fucking a flower. It’s all over the spectrum.
Ursinae: Very ecosexual. Like, what is your relationship with the environment and how can we be sexually connected with nature?
PEFF: Do you feel like this film with “Persephone Returns” falls into that realm?
Ursinae: Not really. Maybe symbolically? But it’s kind of funny because, the same year in spring, I actually filmed another movie which was very much ecosexual, very much about the sap going up during spring, about the sexual energy returning. And then I thought: “Oh, I’m going to do seasonal movies.” And so for summer, I wanted to do Persephone Returns, but then… The reality of life : it was way too short! Because we shot at the end of the summer. So, I kind of made it for winter. I feel that for the myth of Persephone, it works for both seasons.
PEFF: For those who might be unfamiliar, can you briefly describe the Persephone myth?
Ursinae: So, in Greek mythology, the classical myth of Persephone is that the God of Death, Hades, captured her and brought her into the Underworld. And because symbolically she ate the seed of a pomegranate, she got bound to stay in the Underworld. But then her mother, Demeter, the Goddess of harvest and nature, was grieving her daughter so much that the crops stopped growing and nature was dying and spring was not returning.
Demeter pleaded to have her daughter back and Zeus, the King of gods, ruled that Persephone would stay (depending on the myths) half the year, or two thirds of the year in the Underworld with Hades, and then would come back to Earth to her mother for Spring.
PEFF: It’s beautiful. You have a co-star who plays Hades in this barren looking cave and then just the imagery of the pomegranate that you have showcasing the fruit. The seed is a little bit literal as we see later on in the film. It’s very thick. Out of pure curiosity, what was on the pomegranate, was it icing?
Ursinae: Oh, it is a mix of flour, water, and bicarbonate (baking soda).
It’s gross.
PEFF: But you sold it.
Ursinae: It’s because there’s been a lot of reinterpretations of the myth of Persephone recently, and of Greek mythology as a whole – because it’s so sexist! So there’s been a lot of rewriting of « how we can give more agency and will and freedom for all the women in the stories ». So I wanted to do a kind of “booty call” for Persephone. She hasn’t been kidnapped. She’s been just like, oh, yeah, I’m going to get to my fuckboy Hades.
That’s what I wanted to do. And I wanted to have this superposition of the sex scenes in the underworld and the sex scenes in nature to be like : in winter, she comes to Hades to have a good time. And then during spring and summer, it’s Hades who comes to her.
PEFF: Yeah, I love those cuts back and forth between what looked to be the underground, the cave, and then in the open, sunny forest and that juxtaposition of back and forth. I loved seeing that duality and understanding it’s just the seasonality.
Ursinae: That one was very choreographed, because we had to do the exact same sex scenes outside and inside. And I just wanted to show Persephone [as] very assertive, and Hades very worshiping.
PEFF: I definitely got that point of view too. Hades is almost overtaken by how beautiful Persephone is and just wants to service and service and service. And Persephone is the one in control there, down to the big bite of the pomegranate at the end.
Ursinae: This is also a direct reference to Call Me By Your Name.
PEFF: Oh yeah?
Ursinae: I don’t know if you’ve seen it? It’s a very beautiful gay movie. By Luca Guadagnino, with very young Timothee Chalamet.
There’s this infamous scene where he wanked into a peach, and then his lover eats the peach. Some people have been so grossed out by this and some people are like, no, that’s very kinky and very beautiful. I thought oh, that would be a nice kind of little reference to that with the pomegranate.
I also feel that in a lot of porn I see is only centered around the pleasure of men. But it’s rare that they are really featured as objects of desire. They’re basically just a dick in lots of mainstream porn. That’s why I wanted this kind of long, orgasm scene when it’s literally just Hades’s cumming face.
PEFF: You have mentioned in the past how a lot of conventional porn could be kind of gross. And I think a lot of that is because it’s just so POV oriented, right? Like you only see the penis because that’s just what a POV perspective would be. And you want to showcase more with the bigger picture, which I appreciate.
Ursinae: I’m bisexual. And if I watch porn, I want to also look at beautiful men. I want to lust after them. I can enjoy seeing women or men or non-binary people. It kind of makes me sad when they’re just body parts. If it’s very male-gazey, it does not resonate with me.
When I did that movie, because I had bright red hair at the moment, I wanted to colour-code the red for pomegranate – therefore Persephone, while Hades has blue hair, very fitting for the Underworld and the God of Death. But then I was like, “Oh God, it is so straight coded, like blue and pink.” And I was like, “Oh no!”
PEFF: I mean, I don’t think so.
Ursinae: When I talked about the movie to people, I told them: “Oh, I’m going to rewrite Persephone and Hades.” I’ve been asked: “Are you playing Hades then?”
PEFF: Oh, that would be cool though.
Ursinae: That would have been so cool! Damn because of the hair colour-coding, I did not even think of it! I missed a great opportunity to do some nice gender-swap. For me, this is one of the most « straight looking » movies I’ve ever done.
PEFF: I think because Hades’ blue hair is so bright blue, it’s no longer straight.
Ursinae: Yeah.
PEFF: It’s kind of going full circle back to queer. It’s queer again. Yeah. It’s so teal.
Ursinae: And also I know that for a lot of people because of Disney, they have Hades associated with blue hair already – with the blue flame hair. So I thought it was very visual.
PEFF: I know that visual poetry has always been your thing and you’re always wanting to showcase more visual poetry and porn. Are there other projects that are currently in the works?
Ursinae: I am working on a movie for this summer. Which will be kind of in the same vein, kind of a gender swap rewriting of other mythological themes. Usually I keep ideas in mind for years and years before I find people and time and energy to do it. But for that one, we’re really at the final stage. I have the actors, everything. So it is happening eventually!
PEFF: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I can’t wait to see it.
Ursinae: I have new ideas every week, like there’s so many! And I’m always frustrated because I can’t make them all. The problem is that with time, I know too well how much it costs physically, energetically, and financially, and I’m like, okay, what can I realistically do? So for me, it’s more about how can I narrow the ideas that I can actually do?
For example, the one I’m doing this summer, I pitched it to companies a couple of years ago, because I was trying to get a budget for it – because I cannot go on without someone giving me money. Especially for that one, because it involved at least four performers. How can we pay them correctly? So I was trying to get money from companies – these companies who asked me to send ideas for years. And then these companies told me, “We’re not funding anything right now.”
Which means I’m going to do it with no budget again – but also means I need to downsizeeverything.
It always boils down to time, energy, and money. Same for everyone. I think when I was younger, I had a little bit more money, and a lot more energy. Nowadays, I don’t.
PEFF: I think people tend to underestimate the logistical challenges of filmmaking. How do you prioritize what to keep and what to downsize? What helps you?
Ursinae: I’m letting go of all my inspiration for the costumes because literally I cannot afford a makeup artist. So it’s probably going to look a lot more campy and cheaper than what I envisioned because I have to lean into the do-it-yourself aspect of it. But I think since this project is a little bit funny, that could work. I’m gonna switch from my idea of this ethereal, mythical movie, towards a kind of fun cosplays one.
For technical things, I’m always relying on friends, as well as doing a lot of trades. For example, I’m going to do some work for someone and then ask them, can you help me that day for that movie?
To circle back to Persephone, the biggest cost is always performers’ pay. For Persephone Returns, It’s just me and my partner. And I don’t need to pay myself. I also had a friend with whom I work with sometimes, who helped with filming. I will give them some other services or a trade and they film for me in exchange.
However, directing and performing at the same time is really hard. That’s why for the next movie I decided I’d only be directing, not performing this time. For DIY movies, then you have to learn to do everything by yourself. I write, I film, I perform, I do the editing, I do the color-correcting. Sometimes I have some help with the sound editing, because that’s the one thing that’s really not in my alley. I’m not a musician.
Fennel, the actor who played Hades, joins the interview at this point.
PEFF: Hello. I love that your hair is still blue. I know it can be tricky to keep a certain color.
Ursinae: It’s hard.
Fennel: Yeah. We did a few experiments and now it’s good.
Ursinae: You don’t see it on screen, but it’s kind of gray, with purple mixed in as well.
PEFF: I would kill to get that color. So what was your favorite part about shooting Persephone Returns?
Fennel: I think the part in the woods. That was a very nice spot that we found.
PEFF: It looked comfortable, it looked mossy.
Fennel: It was absolutely not comfortable, but it was fun.
Ursinae: It was a one hour hike to get there.
PEFF: Oh my God. Why so far?
Ursinae: Because it’s very handy. We have to be far away from the city. It’s a spot where I shot some kink stuffs before, so I knew that it was really good. It’s very secluded from the path. There was no chance of someone stumbling upon us.
PEFF: Thank you so much for the time today. I really appreciate it. And it’s such a joy to see you again.
Ursinae: Thank you so much.