The Indy Shorts film festival draws plenty of heavy hitters — the current edition includes shorts from Seth Rogen and Hillary Clinton — but also does an exemplary job of highlighting local talent who deserve a wide audience. Among the standouts this year is Zac Cooper and Jessie Epstein’s “Housecats,” a very short but understatedly moving film about a mother and daugher hiding out on a bathroom floor.
MovieMaker profiled Cooper two years ago when his deft, similarly charming romantic comedy It Happened One Weekend debuted at Indy Short’s feature-focused sister fest, the Heartland International Film Festival. Think of a lighthearted Manhattan or Annie Hall, if they were set in Indianapolis instead of Manhattan.
With “Housecats,” the director teams up with writer and star Jessie Epstein, a fellow Indianapolis-connected artist, for a story of a daughter (Epstein) and her mom (Epstein’s actual mom, Cindy Clemens) who trade observations about life as they hide our from an unwanted visitor to their house. (We all do this, right?)
The film screened Tuesday as part of Indy Short’s Indy Spotlight block at the Living Room Theaters, and screens again Sunday. This year’s seventh annual Indy Shorts, one of our Coolest Film Festivals and 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, runs through Sunday.
We asked Cooper and Epstein about making low-key charmers with a few friends (Cooper’s films are under the production banner of A Few Friends), keeping your shots elegantly simple, and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
MovieMaker: Zac, when we talked a couple years ago, you were doing what we at MovieMaker often recommend filmmakers do — make good films at a steady clip, with a trusted team, in an affordable, enjoyable, smaller city — in your case Indianapolis — instead of moving to L.A. or NYC and putting all your energy into work you don’t necessarily like, just to afford to live near the film industry, while not necessarily making your dream projects. Any update? How are things working out? And Jessie, what has been your approach to filmmaking?
Zac Cooper: I’m still here in Indy. When we talked a couple of years ago I had a full-time job. Now I’m a freelancer. So I have flirted with the idea of moving to a bigger city. But what’s really special about Indy is that everyone in the community supports each other. We don’t view each other as competition. We inspire and push each other. That’s really special. I don’t take that for granted.
Jessie Epstein: I moved to L.A. in 2019, and then came back to Indy during the pandemic, which is when I met Zac on a commercial shoot, which led to working with him on It Happened One Weekend. I was really inspired by what he/A Few Friends were up to — making the kind of movies you want to see/actually want to make, with people you respect and admire, without sacrificing quality.
After being welcomed into the fold with them, I’ve tried to bring some of that “smaller city” sensibility back to L.A. in the projects I’m making with my filmmaking community there (aka, getting less hung up on the “how” and throwing everything at the “why”), while periodically coming back to make projects in Indy as well. So basically I’m doing both until someone makes me stop!
Jessie Epstein and Zac Cooper on ‘Housecats’ and Eavesdropping
MovieMaker: What was the origin of “Housecats”? How did it evolve?
Zac Cooper: We filmed this in October of last year. Jessie told me she would be in town for a week and we both agreed we should capitalize on the opportunity and make a short. She sent me the script for “Housecats” and I found it to be funny and moving. I usually direct my own scripts. So I was excited to have the challenge of directing someone else’s material.
Jessie Epstein: As a filmmaker, I am continually drawn to the types of movies where the audience feels like they’re eavesdropping — I’m obsessed with seeing how people behave in private. The short is based on a real conversation I had with my mother under similar circumstances you see in the film. What struck me most about it, why I chose to turn it into a screenplay, was how fluidly that conversation volleyed back and forth between being silly and deadly serious, which is typical of conversation with the person you are most comfortable with — heavy and light.
That’s the territory all my favorite movies exist in. The first draft was slightly longer, and Zac helped me zero in on where I was being too precious. He came up with a new ending, I cut this big monologue which (fingers crossed!) you’ll see in the feature version of this, and from there we had our shooting script.
Also Read: Indy Shorts Lineup Includes Seth Rogen’s ‘Taking Care’ and Hillary Clinton’s ‘Facing the Falls’
MovieMaker: This movie felt very real to me — my dad used to duck and hide like this when missionaries or surprise guests came to our door. And the tragic story of the cat rang true for me too. Jessie, how did you know you had enough story? I thought it really resonated, without struggling for a “big” message.
Jessie Epstein: I love that. Life is just so compelling without any set dressing. Like, our cat died in this crazy way! It was so sad and also incredibly funny! I wanted to explore how something absurd — i.e., the gut reaction of hiding from uninvited guests by crawling into your bathroom — often leads to something sublime: a conversation that wouldn’t have happened otherwise and that rattles around in your head way longer than you expect. Everyone knows what it’s like to want to hide from uninvited guests (especially in the Midwest!), to lose something or someone you love. So I love hearing that it landed that way for you.
MovieMaker: Your mom is an excellent actor. Did she have a lot of theatrical experience, or did you just see her potential?
Jessie Epstein: Isn’t she?! She did a lot of theater growing up — she studied it in London, did some stuff at the Eugene O’Neill theater in Connecticut, but then her singing career took off and she more or less stopped acting. She is my favorite storyteller on the planet, so my motivation in writing this was somewhat selfish: I wanted to act with her! And I wanted to showcase how compelling she is.
MovieMaker: What was your biggest obstacle in making “Housecats” and how did you overcome it?
Jessie Epstein: I mean, selling someone on a short that spends 80% of its runtime on a 3×3 bathroom floor is a unique challenge, but Zac (and cinematographer Austin Webster!) knew exactly how to make it work visually. I was definitely concerned with it “feeling interesting,” cutting back and forth vs. just a single shot, but Zac and I ultimately agreed to let the story breathe and embrace the environment. It comes back to that idea of eavesdropping; it ultimately feels like you’re right there on the floor with Mother and Daughter.
Zac Cooper: Like Jessie mentioned, my biggest obstacle was getting out of the way and letting Jessie and Cindy do their thing. I had more coverage of the bathroom scene. But every time I cut to a close-up I was killing their natural rhythm. So I decided to let everything play out in the wide.
MovieMaker: Finally, I loved the Anna Karenina reference the mom unexpectedly throws in. How did you land on that reference and what does it tell us about the character?
Jessie Epstein: That’s pulled right outta life; my whole family always used to say that our cat that died, who you see in the final frame of the film, looked like Anna Karenina (it’s one of our favorite books). She had these huge yellow-green eyes and this very dramatic face; she just looked so tragic and beautiful to all of us, like she waltzed into Carmel, Indiana after a first life in 19th century Moscow.
From a character perspective, I think it conveys the sort of operatic quality to Mother. She’s simultaneously performative and 100% sincere in her emotional life, which is what makes you wanna lean in when she talks. It clues you into the way Mother and Daughter relate to each other, the hyperbole mixed in with the realism. I also wanted to get at the kind of crazy, unexpected places you go in grief, how when someone dies the things you find yourself saying and thinking and remembering surprise you.
You can learn more about Indy Shorts here.
Main image: Jessie Epstein and Cindy Clemens in “Housecats.”