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The best part about the film screenings at Sundance is the Q&A that x film’s filmmaker, main actor, editor, etc., attends after each viewing, holding court for about fifteen minutes or so. Much like ScreenPrism’s mission, these in-person Q&As are an invaluable point of view into the thought processes of the cast and crew as they answer any burning questions about anything and everything that occured on-screen less than five minutes prior. That immediate feedback from the filmmaker is intoxicating (and always fascinating).

Below is a transcript of the Q&A that was held after the January 27th screening of The Fits (2016) at the Yarrow Theatre during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Writer-director Anna Rose Holmer was there, along with her co-screenwriters Lisa Kjerulff and Saela Davis (who also edited the final version).

Audience Member: What was the genesis of the story of The Fits?

Anna Rose Holmer: I really wanted to tell a coming-of-age story about being a female that wasn’t about sexual awakening. For me, I felt like there was this point in my life where I was trying to find my own identity, and that happened before I was worrying about my attraction to the opposite sex. There was this story about girlhood that I wasn’t seeing that I think is common for movies about boys. “Who am I?” For girls, it’s always “who am I?” in context of someone else. Another thing – I really wanted to make a dance film, and I was really interested in contagions. I had been working with New York City Ballet for five or six years and watching dancers learn how to dance was so fascinating to me, [especially] the body mirroring that happens when you learn choreography. I felt that was the perfect story point to tell a story in this context.

Audience member: There was a lot of anxiety in the film. For the writers of The Fits, how did you approach and plan that anxiety?

ARH: Lisa [Kjerulff], Saela [Davis], and I co-wrote the script together. We worked with music supervisors on the script to find music that we really connected with. My original idea for the film was to license a lot more music, but it became really clear as we looked at the first assembly of the film that that wasn’t the right answer. We needed a much stronger voice for Toni in the film. So the score that you just heard by our incredible composers – Danny [Bensi] and Saunder [Jurriaans] – that came out of the untapped, quiet, discomfort leaking throughout the film. That came late in the process for us but it was very organic to seeing the film.

Audience member: The film has a very sparse and specific look. Can you talk about the visual look of the film?

ARH: The visual look for the film was something that I felt really strong about from the beginning. My [director of photography], Paul Yee, did an incredible job on this film. He’s been a very close friend of mine for thirteen. I came up in camera [work], so I was a first assistant, operator, then DP, so camera language was where I felt most confident as a director. We spent weeks on location, really adapting the script to the set, the set being a real community center. That kind of poise and control: we looked at a lot of horror films – Hunger was a big influence for me – [to allow the] visual language create this uncomfortable space that still felt controlled. Instead of having a chaotic mirror to the chaotic inside of Toni, it felt like a much stronger choice to hold the camera, so all the chaos is coming from inside her, not from the camera work.

Audience member: Can you comment on the casting process, and about Royalty in particular?

ARH: One of the first things about this film, which I was very intent on, was casting all the girls for the film from the same dance team. We actually cast the team first. Every girl in the film is from Q-Kidz. They’re a drill tea from Cincinnati and we only opened casting to the Q-Kids from the start. We were pretty confident that we could find every character inside the team, except for Toni. We were okay with casting elsewhere if needed. The eighth girl we saw was Royalty [Hightower] and – I had heard a lot of horror stories about kid casting, and there was a lot of chatter from our mentors about a backup plan – but Royalty, from the moment she walked into the room, there was that “it.” She had “it.” I had mentioned this in the last Q&A, and it still applies here: It was like seeing a musician play on stage it, and instead of just saying “That’s lovely music,” I wanted to jam with that musician, collaborate with her. The Toni you see on-screen is really a collaboration between me and Royalty. I know she’s only ten, but she’s incredible and very gifted, which was apparent immediately.

Audience member: For your locations, did you scout around or did you have [the community center] that in mind? Was it always supposed to be set in Cincinnati?

ARH: The community center that is depicted onscreen is really the center where the Q-Kidz practice all the time. I saw all the Q-Kidz on YouTube and had this immediate feeling of falling in love. They were the only team I approached [to be] in the film. I flew into Cincinnati, and the moment I walked into the community center, I called Lisa and said that we could make this movie because this building is so incredible. The only thing that’s not in the building is the bathroom, but everything else is this one building. For indie filmmakers, that’s a huge gift. And [the community center] let us paint and they were so generous with us.

LK: From the very beginning, as soon as Anna had talked to the Q-Kidz, the community center was also on board with us. Which was amazing. It helped, with the kids being used to going to the community center. That’s where they went after school, where they spent most of their time. It helped to have such a safe space for so many girls. And, like Anna said, they let us paint the walls, let us store our equipment, take over an active community center for twenty days, and it was amazing.

ARH: It’s the only community center in Cincinnati that has a boxing gym inside it. The only one; it just happened to have it.

Audience member: Can you speak briefly about the fits themselves and what they mean for you?

ARH: You know, I think I’d like to leave that a little open, like I did with the film. But one of the big messages for me is that: the desire to be part of a group is not – should not – be conflated with conformity. There is power to that desire and a positive aspect to be a part of a community. That doesn’t mean the erasing of self. What we really wanted to do with the film was have each fit be an individual experience, so none of the fits look like each other. That was really important to us, and that’s a [big] departure from the cases we were looking at, where the symptoms were identical for each girl. We wanted to translate that individual, unique experience for each girl having the fit. So we choreographed them in isolation. Each girl worked with our choreographers, without ever knowing what the other fits looked like. They had no idea, and that’s why they all look so different. They only did them on the day of shooting. So Toni does step in line, but in her own way, and in her own voice. She is is control of [herself] and her identity.

Audience member: Can you tell us more about directing the film’s physically demanding scenes?

ARH: Something we joked about was that we were making a feature-length workout video. They were very intense. Everything for me was about the physical performance. So if I wanted to achieve an emotional state, we approached it from the physical direction. So for Toni, it’s how she holds her shoulders when she’s breathing, how she’s holding her tension, and how she’s engaged. That’s how we approached the emotional direction as well. The whole [film] became physical. I definitely had the benefit of exposure to dance on film many years [prior]. You learn a lot. I’m really grateful for that time at the New York City Ballet. Especially [when you film] the verite filming with dancers. As the camera operator, there’s a dance that happens, where you’ll have to observe and interpret how someone’s going to move and become in tune with them as a camera operator. I got a lot out of that world and am still grateful for that time.

Audience member: You had a very meditative approach to the visual quality of this film. Is that a personal stamp of yours? Or is it specific to this film?

ARH: I hope so. I haven’t directed in the fiction format [before], so this is my first time doing that. I’ve directed in a documentary before. Yes, there is a kind of meditative or transcendental idea in the movie. The end of the film, it’s about a kind of catharsis and to get the audience into that state of mine, I felt that there was a specific tone and pace that was needed. Some of that comes from my editor, Saela [Davis], who is an incredible storyteller. She helped direct this script. There’s a fine line [between] keeping that pace and keeping that movie and I think she did such an elegant job in keeping that quality, without ever feeling like [the movie] was slowing down.

Audience member: How much of the movement in the film was choreographed? How much input did you get from the drill team? Was any of the movements improvised?

ARH: We worked with three choreographers on the film. Two drill choreographers, twins Chariah and Mariah, and a modern choreographer. [The twins already] choreograph for the Q-Kidz. The strength of that was they knew the dancers really well and their strengths. I worked with them on building the narrative quality, which I really love about [drill]. We really incorporated a lot of the storytelling into the drill sequences. Then the modern instructor [dealt with] all the other movements of the film, most prominently the fits. But, also, the way Toni walks, it’s like every single movement is controlled. I lived on location for nine weeks, and a lot of it was observing and seeing the girls. For example, Alexis [Neblett], who plays Beezy, the one with the afro puffs: she was always a joy to watch. She was always doing crazy things, so a lot of stuff in the film, I had seen her do before, and I was curating and picking. She was a beautiful dance rand she so much freedom in movement, which was a great contrast to Toni, who’s so controlled and stiff [all the time]. It was fun to have [Alexis] play and explore. But yes: every single thing was choreographed. We just thought of the entire film as a dance [number].