THE HOLIDAY CLUB Interview: Alexandra Swarens Talks Seasonal Sapphic Storytelling, Respecting Romance, and Getting Her Hands Dirty

Writer, director, and actor Alexandra Swarens has been making low-key and authentic sapphic rom-coms since her 2019 feature debut City of Trees, carving out a niche for herself in festive flirtations. Her latest, the aptly-titled The Holiday Club, has arrived in our cinematic stockings thanks to Tello Films, a new streaming platform dedicated to sapphic content.

In this delightful interview, Swarens and I discuss the present positioning of romantic cinema, the immediacy of her film’s screen chemistry, and hilarious, accidental euphemisms.

I want to start by asking: Why the holidays? Looking at your wider filmography, you’re like the queen of lesbian Christmas.

[laughs] That’s quite a title.

I don’t think I’ve tried to do that. It’s fallen into my lap a little bit. Because I made one, and then I guess I had made two. Then another company was like ‘Could you make another?’ And another company again was like ‘What about another?’.

I hadn’t heard of your films before, and I'm glad to have discovered them. Has your audience found you yet? Have you found it difficult to get discovered within a sea of content?

I don't really know, because I'm not online so much. I'm not sure where it's fallen. I think the right people will find them. I'm not quite sure who finds them and when, but they're out there, so hopefully they get found.

Tell me about Tello Films, both as a company and as a streaming platform that's distributing your stuff.

Christin [Baker], who owns it, she's amazing. The Holiday Club is on Tello for rent and to purchase. It's also on Amazon and Google and places like that. But yeah, Tello is a sapphic streamer that you can find a lot of queer content on, which is great.

Do you set out to take the heterosexual rom-com formula and queer it, or do you go with what’s instinctive for a sapphic story? Which is your starting point?

I guess I don't think about sapphic when I'm writing. I just think about what I know. I love rom coms, but I don't think about formula.  That's not something that comes up in my head at all. I think about where the characters are, where it would make sense for them to be, where they're at in their relationship— things like that.

And I think the heterosexual films are great., we need a bunch of those. And the gay community need queer rom coms too.

There are a fair few throwbacks and references in the film. The narrative becomes very When Harry Met Sally. You then make that textually explicit, which tickled me.

I’m a huge Nora Ephron fan. I didn’t set out to emulate When Harry Met Sally, but the queer experience of having a friend and then they become a lover is out there. It's big. And I love that film, it's kind of perfect.

There are other things as well, like the listening booth scene from Before Sunrise.

I love the Before trilogy. But I can't say that I was thinking of that when I shot that or wrote it. When I went to Ohio to scout for the film, I found this record shop. I could immediately picture the scene there. That's how that came about. I wrote the scene after I saw [the place]. But great, great reference. I would not be mad at someone assuming that.

What's your approach to writing? You say you stumbled upon this store and wrote after. Is the film for the most part a script that you write and then you work from that? Or is it more of an organic process?

The process is pretty organic. I usually have some dialogue in my head, and then I explore it from there. I think: ‘Who are these people? Why are they saying that to each other?’ And then the process starts.

Once you know your characters somewhat and how they'd react to things, you can put them in places.

Do you type these scenes, or is it improvised or devised with the two of you?

We didn't do a ton of improvisation, but there was some. There were a few times where we would just waffle on after the initial scene. Because I'm the one calling cut, I just kept it going for a while to see what we would come up with. A lot of that is actually in the finished film.

You’re multi-role in this production, as with your other films. What’s it like to explore both sides of the camera, and what drives that decision?

I mainly started writing screenplays so I could act more and star in stuff that reflects what I see in my life, and what I see as lacking in media. That’s how that came about.

Directing was never really a part of it. It became a part of it because someone needed to do it. It just worked out that way, and it’s been working okay.

The results are great. Tell me about your co-star and working with them.

Mak[aela Shealey] is amazing. Mak came on board four or five days before production. It was very, very fast.

They're just the best. They understood Sam really quickly. We only went over the script a few times before we started shooting the next day. It was a quick friendship that formed, and it's been great.

Were you getting to know each other on set as you were shooting then? Was your real-life relationship expanding much like the gradual chemistry that we see spark and evolve on screen?

We shot the first scene first. It felt very: Oh, my gosh, we're in it. This is us. This is what we're going to be. We're setting the tone.

I wanted the relationship to feel like they were suddenly in each other's worlds. They’re next-door neighbours, and them not having met each other yet was a cool opportunity to be like, okay well, once they do, they can't really disconnect from each other.

I think our relationship was built around that. We lived together during the shoot: the cinematographer, Mac, and I.

As we’ve noted, films like yours are still a rarity. I interviewed the Filipino director Samantha Lee earlier in the year, she makes really nice sapphic films as well, hers focusing on the younger generation. But there aren’t many directors doing stuff like this, especially with your demographic.

Sorry, what was her name?

Samantha Lee. She had a great film called Rookie which came out earlier this year, but not in the U.S., I don't think.

Okay, I'm going to watch that.

Yeah, do. It's a soft-focus volleyball drama.

Perfect. Volleyball, queer. That sounds amazing.

Where do you feel we're at with the sapphic film landscape? Where’s it heading? What can we do?

I spoke with someone about this yesterday. We were talking about The Children's Hour and how, since that film, we've come so far. 

We have a lot further to go. I don't feel that I'm held in this queer rom-com holiday spot. I feel there’s a space for that, and I feel lucky to be doing it right now. But I don't feel that that's what I'll always do. We still need All Of The Things.

I'd love to see more storytellers. It’s just my voice making my stuff, we need everyone else's authenticity out there too. And, Samantha Lee, I'm going to watch your films. That's amazing.

If queer films aren't being made constantly, they remain niche films. It's going to take a while to get that many out there, for it to become as saturated as heterosexual films.

Do you view your films as purely LGBT interest, or are you approaching all audiences with your work? Are you saying ‘please, fellow sapphics, come and watch my films’, or are you calling wider?

I don't think my stuff is so niche. The bigger films that get made usually involves some situation with a man as a part of the sapphic love triangle, to capture an audience. Maybe that reflects what we think happens, but it's not that authentic.

To draw everyone in the world to want to watch a film, we don't need to add that. Love is universal, so it's not hard to see yourself in something, even if it's not the same gender or sexuality.

Tell me about the pumpkin scene. What I find interesting about it, is that you do have an actual sex scene in this film, but the pumpkin scene euphemistically feels like the actual sex scene of the film.

[laughs] I never thought about it like that! I just wrote it in. I thought that it would be sweet with the pumpkin seeds and all that stuff. I love to get my hands dirty, so carving a pumpkin is right up my alley, and— [splutters into laughter again] That’s so funny. It does work out that way, doesn't it?

You've got two lesbians sitting on the floor fingering small hollowed-out pumpkins. It does. It does work out that way.

Oh my god. And it was hard to get our hands in there. They were actually squashes that we painted, because we couldn't find pumpkins in April. But that is… kind of sexy, isn't it? Look at that. Yeah… And it all unravels from there.

This film is a classic romantic comedy. How do you feel romantic cinema is currently perceived, and how do you feel it should be perceived?

Some audiences would consider your films quite light. They might regard them as they would an airport novel. Romantic cinema is perhaps undervalued.

I think that romance takes a lot. Maybe when you're watching it, it feels very easy, but that means that a lot of work was behind that. It doesn't just happen. You have to be very vulnerable to fall in love.

If people think that’s popcorn fodder, that you could vacuum and not miss anything, I don’t think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think we could all use a little bit of that in our lives.

I don't find romantic films disposable. I feel so emotional when I watch romance. So that perspective sounds kind of sad.

Romance seems to be a genre that we treat as lesser or as not being ‘serious cinema’. Nora Ephron’s films and many others were highly regarded. But if you look at rom-coms now, they're not so remarked upon, we’ve got the whole ‘chick flick’ term.

Maybe the writing quality is different because we have so many. Hallmark, they put out thirty-or-so films. People enjoy those films too, of course, and we should allow them to. Maybe not every one is going to be the best you've ever seen, but you'll find a good one in there, right?

You can apply that to love and relationships themselves. They won't all be for you, but eventually you’ll find the one that clicks with you, right?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But it doesn't make the ones that didn't less meaningful. You had to do all the trial and error.

Talking more on genre, do you consider your films in any way ‘mumblecore’? Has mumblecore cinema influenced you?

I like Greta Gerwig's old films, Hannah Takes the Stairs and stuff like that. I think the mumblecore movement maybe turns people off. The Puffy Chair, I love that film. I don't know if my films have been labelled mumblecore, but I wouldn't mind it if they did, because I enjoy a lot of things that are.

What's up next for you? You’ve done a lot of holiday sapphic stories, but that’s not necessarily your only skill in cinema.

It wouldn't be a bad skill to hone. I have two features that are queer and completed. One is a drama, one is a romance with a Before Sunrise feel to it. We shot the latter last year in France. I took five crew members with me, we just wanted to make something over there. It was really, really nice. So those will be coming out at some point, hopefully soon. 

And I have so many scripts written. I do have one more Christmas holiday rom com. I really love this script, but it does need a bit of a bigger budget. I've written a pilot as well, very queer. There’s lots of places I can go from here. I'm just taking it a day at a time and seeing which idea wants to fully form next.

The Holiday Club is available to stream now on Tello Films and all major digital streaming platforms.