Virgin 2003

Written and directed by Deborah Kampmeier,

VIRGIN was nominated for two 2004 Independent Spirit Awards. In addition, Kampmeier won Best Screenwriter at the 2003 Hamptons International Film Festival. VIRGIN also garnered Best Feature Film at the 2003 Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, won Best Independent Spirit at the Santa Fe Film Festival and Best Actress at the Sedona Film Festival. The film stars Elisabeth Moss and Robin Wright Penn.

Synopsis

Virgin is the story of Jessie, a rebellious teenager, wrestling with her own spirituality and against her family’s conservative Baptist tradition. After a sexual encounter occurring while unconscious from alcohol and drugs, Jessie finds herself pregnant. With no memory of sex and having a dream in which God speaks to her, Jessie proceeds with the belief that she is carrying the next Christ child, a belief that at first enrages and then inspires her, causing violent opposition in her community.

The Power of the Imagination

For me Virgin was about many things… finding one's own voice and one's own truth, our inner reality vs. outer reality and which of those is more real, and the divinity in all things. But mostly for me it was about the power of the imagination and how what we believe changes our perspective and perception of ourselves and the world around us. Once Jessie believes she has something special inside of her, which I believe we all have, she has eyes to see things and ears to hear things she never saw or heard before, but that were there all along. Once she believes she has something special inside of her, Jessie’s path changes from one of self destruction to one of self respect and self love. Through her imagination she connects with herself and with others in her world.

Getting My First Feature Film Made

I had been trying to get my film “Hounddog” made for years, and Robin Wright had been attached to executive produce and star in the film for most of that time. When the financing for the four million dollar budget fell through in the Spring of 2002…for the fourth year in a row, I was overwhelmed by a ferocious determination to get my first feature made, and made immediately. I had several other scripts, Virgin was one of them, the one I was most passionate about, and one I thought could withstand digital video on a very low budget. I called Robin and asked her to do it. She loved the script and thought it was much more commercial than “Hounddog”. She thought I could raise a relatively large budget for this film. I was like “yeah but that will take me years and I’m shooting it now…will you do it?” She agreed, flying herself to New York, working under the SAG ultra low-budget agreement, staying in a cheap motel. I know no other woman with more integrity, humanity and generosity. I’ll never have the words to thank her for the gift she gave me.

Crowdfunding Before There Was Crowdfunding

Robin had a week of time available in September, which gave me five weeks to raise the money, three weeks of pre-production and twenty-one days to shoot.

I shifted into high gear, reached out to my friends, family, colleagues and everyone on my email list asking them to invest in the film. I was trying to raise $75,000 and asked for $750 investments. When a friend wasn’t able to invest $750 I asked them to get ten friends together and invest $75 each. It was crowdfunding before there was ever crowdfunding. I reached out daily until I had raised the $45,000 I needed to feel comfortable beginning pre-production. And I continued raising money through the shoot. “Virgin” was ultimately shot for $65,000.

Casting

Robin asked me if there was anything that would stop me from going forward with the shoot. I said the only thing was if I didn’t find “Jessie”. Jen Rudin was a casting assistant at the time and I brought her on as our casting director. She brought a little known Elisabeth Moss in to read for Jessie. When Lizzy walked into the room I knew it was her, she was wearing a jean skirt, a Harley t-shirt and greasy hair. I thought to myself, ‘dear god let her be able to act’. And could she ever. Even so, I felt I needed to see her again. We had such a short rehearsal period and intense shooting schedule I had to make sure she could really do it. Lizzy said of her hour-long callback, “It was the hardest audition of my life, and I’ve been acting a long time. But by the end of the audition not only had I convinced Deborah that I could do the role, but I had convinced myself as well.”

Inspiration Whispers

At the time, I had been teaching acting for decades and that experience had given me a great understanding of working with actors. I feel my job is to get everything out of their way so they can release themselves and reveal their souls. As a director my job is to hold the space…and to listen, listen to the actors, listen to the story trying to be told, listen to the set, listen to the world holding the set. It’s a kind of meditation. Inspiration whispers, so you need to be quiet enough to hear it.

Handheld Camera

When we decided to shoot Virgin on digital video, because of our budgetary restrictions, we faced many limitations. At that time my priority became the performances of my actors and my focus was to create an environment where they could do their best work. My aesthetic sensibilities have always leaned towards mise-en-scène and a lyrical movement of camera. I realized I would not be able to use that form to express my vision for Virgin, it would have to be sacrificed for the performances and the telling of the story. However, I felt strongly that the emotional thrust of the story needed a moving camera, and as dolly moves would be prohibitive, both in time and money, and steadicam was out of my reach, I chose to exclusively use a hand held camera. Influenced by its use in films like Breaking the Waves and Rosetta, I felt it would support the chaos and struggle of this teenage girl’s inner world.

Birds

As difficult as it was for the production, I had to have the birds. My line producer told me early on that I would have to cut them and I burst into tears and insisted I had to have them. To her credit she made it happen for me. The birds became a large percentage of our very small budget. But it felt essential. It felt like I was attempting to do the impossible, capture the uncapturable, somehow get Jessie’s experience of the divine on screen. I felt that any kind of special effects generated in post production wouldn’t do it. And the birds would capture not just the beauty and the awesomeness but also the chaos and the confusion experienced with a divine encounter.

Movie Mama

The shoot of Virgin stretched me way beyond my limits. By the end I felt like I had given birth a hundred times to this baby…you know the famed final phase in labor where you feel like you can’t possibly go on any longer, you’re literally screaming ‘I can’t do it anymore’ plus profanities, and then the baby is immediately born…that didn’t happen just once on this film, I had to give that “final” push over and over again.

Also because I was a single mom I decided I would have my one year old daughter on set with me at all times, and if she was having a problem we would stop shooting and take care of it. Because of that I lost some potential department heads with big careers ahead of them that I really wanted on the film. They felt my plan was utterly unreasonable.  But that’s what I did. I would set up shots with my daughter on my body in a sling, oftentimes nursing. I would hand her off to my nanny for takes, and get her to sleep every night in the front seat of my car, which was just out of frame. We scheduled the shoot in splits so I could get a little sleep every night.  I always felt that if I was just a mother I would be a terrible mother, but if I was a filmmaker and a mother, I would be a good one. For me that proved to be true. I loved having my daughter on set with me, and ultimately it kept very sane and very real having a child there. There was no acting out… except on the screen.

Release

We premiered the film at the LA Film Festival, went on to screen at many others, garnering awards along the way, culminating in two Independent Spirit Award nominations. It was thrilling to witness audiences experience what I have felt time and again in the movie theater and that led me to want to make films…that when someone speaks their truth and holds up a mirror for you to see your own truths, no matter how dark, how secret, how frightening … you feel less alone in the world.

Even with all of the accolades and the strong audience response, no distributor wanted the film. I filled the house with women responding audibly with tears and gratitude, and the distributors would say they just didn’t know who the audience was. I was exasperated! Our target audience is over half the population. Our film raises many issues for women. Other than the obvious and pressing issue of rape, there are basic issues of self-esteem. Of women trusting their intuition. Of hearing their own voice. Women expressed over and over again they are hungry for films like this.

And then a couple at the Sarasota Film Festival saw the audience response and were moved by it. They offered to finance the distribution. And were immediately raised to the position of “angels” for me and the film.

Virgin had its New York release August 13th, 2004 at the Angelika Theater. And was acquired by Hart Sharp Video for its DVD/home video release in January 2005.

Virgin is a film about the power of the imagination. About our ability to turn what could be paralyzing traumas into meaningful myths for ourselves. It’s about looking honestly at the darkness in our world and in ourselves but it's also a statement of hope. And I think in this day and age, we are all longing for the sober truth and also for hope.

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