After winning Sundance in 1992, the director’s career stalled, thanks in part, he says, to Harvey Weinstein. It was making films with his family that saved him
When Alexandre Rockwell’s basement flooded a few years ago, he spotted an opportunity. Why not do the repairs himself and put the $80,000 (£58,000) insurance payout towards making a new film? He hired graduate students from New York University, where he is the head of directing at the graduate film school, as crew and cast his children, Lana, 18, and Nico, 15, in the leading roles. Lana is on our video call, too, laughing at her dad as he finishes the story. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to make a film,” he jokes. “I just hope I don’t have to burn my house down next time, or cut my leg off.”
Lana was 15 when the family shot Sweet Thing. It is the second movie directed by their dad that she has appeared in with her brother Nico – a follow-up of sorts to 2013’s Little Feet. In both, the Rockwells play siblings growing up dirt poor, constantly in harm’s way, but whose innocence is a kind of magical overcoat, protecting them from the world – up to a point. Little Feet was about two little kids taking their goldfish to the ocean to set it free. The new one is a coming-of-age tale, Stand by Me meets Badlands. Shot in black and white on 16mm film, the two movies share a freewheeling energy and a fairytale quality; the world seen through a child’s sense of wonder.
