One Goes Astray

The idea for this film came to me suddenly on a cold January morning of 2022. A stereotypical scene in a Western saloon appeared in my mind and I wrote it. Nothing original apart from the fact that the hero was a heroine.
I put it aside and didn’t think of it until the end of 2022 as I started to realise that my Masters was halfway done and I needed to prepare for the final project.
Once more, the Western idea surfaced. Why? To me one of the wonders of cinema, and of any art form, is the ability to create a story-world that draws the viewer to it despite being foreign to them at the beginning. Period dramas, epics, fantasies, science fiction and foreign films appeal to broad audiences. There is something true, something real and mysterious that links us to the past, the imaginary and the dream.
Why is it and how does it work? Brilliant essayists have attempted to answer these questions and I am not suggesting that I have one myself, but in deciding to make this Western, I wanted to play with this fascinating notion. A strange world, something out of our ordinary, that nonetheless resonates with us. After all, cinema is about bringing people together, even if it is simply between one character and the spectator. This “mysterious link” was the catalyst for the already formed idea in my mind.
I went over the short scene I had written and tried to imagine how this small Western bubble could take a turn into something less stereotypical. Again, I found the answer in the “mysterious link”. The heroine gained an estranged sister. Starting from a small outline, the story became a script. Our team’s goal was to play with the stereotypes of Western to create a more nuanced and approachable world that the audience could recognise as its own. The saloon, the cowboys, the horses and guns are all present but so is the bond between Rose and Jane. We want this sibling relationship to bring out the humanity of this foreign western world. It is said that identification helps the viewer connect to the story. I cannot help but point again at the word relationship. They are responsible for that “mysterious link”, for keeping our love for certain movies and specific characters alive long after we’ve watched them on screen. In my opinion, that’s the essence of a story and that is what One Goes Astray attempts to do.
This film is a gamble. It’s a risk we took because we wanted to show that the passion of new filmmakers can confront never-ending obstacles and make crazy ideas happen. It was and is an ambitious project. It is not perfect but it is the perfect teacher for all of us involved. We have made mistakes and we have learned so much from them. And I can only hope that we will continue to do so, no matter how little or much we contribute to cinema.