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 and kind of the sexual energy returning. And then I was like, “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 summer. So I kind of made it for winter because I feel with 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 the Greek mythology, 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’s bound to stay in the underworld. But then her mother, who was 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.
So she pleaded to have her daughter back and Zeus, the king of gods, ruled that Persephone would stay, depending on the myth, half the year or like 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 reinterpretation of the myth of Persephone recently. And I think of Greek mythology as a whole because it’s so sexist. And so there’s been a lot of rewriting of how we can put 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 scene in the underworld and the sex scene in nature to be like this is in winter. In winter, she comes to Hades to have a good time. And then during spring and summer, Hades 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, 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. Timothee Chalamet.
There’s this infamous scene where he wanked into a peach and then his lover eats the peach. And some people have been so grossed out by this and some people are like, no, that’s very kinky and very beautiful. And I was like, 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, it’s centered around the pleasure of men. But it’s rare that they are really featured. 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.
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 see beautiful men. But I also 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 parts.
If it’s very male-gazey, it does not resonate with me.
When I did that movie, I realized because of the color that, because I have red hair, I wanted to do the red for pomegranate and Hades has blue hair. And 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 was like, “Oh, I’m going to rewrite Persephone and Hades.” Another friend was like, “Are you playing Hades?” I did not even think of it!
PEFF: Oh, that would be cool though.
Ursinae: That would have been so cool! But I think just because I already had red hair, I was like, oh no, whatever. For me, it was 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 in blue hair already, that is kind of blue skin. So he’s very, very caught in 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 that one, we’re really finalizing. I have the actors, everything. So it is happening.
PEFF: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I can’t wait to see it.
Ursinae: I have ideas every week, like there’s so many and I’m always frustrated because I can’t make them. The problem is with time, I know how much it costs physically, energetically, and financially, and I’m also like, okay, what can I realistically do? So for me, it’s more how can I narrow the idea that I can actually do?
For example, the one I’m doing this summer, I kind of 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 that one because it involved at least four performers. How can we pay them correctly? So I was trying to get money from companies and companies asked me to send ideas for years and then companies are trying to be like, “Oh, we’re not funding anything right now.” So now I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to do it with no budget again,” but it means downsizing everything.
So this is always time and energy and money. Same for everyone. I think when I was younger, I had a little bit more money and more energy. Now, 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 cheap than what I envisioned because I have to lean into the do-it-yourself aspect of it. But I think because it’s kind of a little bit funny, that could work. Because for me it was like, oh, I’m going to do this ethereal mythical thing and it’s going to be kind of fun cosplays.
For technical things, I’m always relying on friends, and same, I’m doing a lot of trade things. Like I’m going to do some work for someone and I’m like, can you help me that day for that movie?
To kind of circle back to Persephone, biggest cost, always performers. It’s me and my partner. So I don’t need to pay myself. And so I had a friend who helped with filming that I work with sometimes.
I will give them some other services or a trade and they will be filming. Directing and performing is really hard. That’s why for the next movie I was like, I’m just directing, not performing anymore. And then you have to learn to do everything yourself. Like I do the editing, I do the color correcting. Sometimes I have help with the sound because that’s the one thing that’s really not my alley and 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, purple mixed as well.
PEFF: I would kill to get that color. So what was your favorite part about shooting Persephone Returns?
Fennel: I think the party 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.
And it’s a spot where I shot some kink stuff before. So I knew that it was really good. It’s very secluded from the path. So we knew that there was no chance of someone stumbling upon us.
There’s probably a lot of closer spots, but I don’t know them. And I knew that well. So I was like, you know what? There.
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.