Writer, director and actress Annapurna Sriram‘s celluloid fever dream has won over audiences at SXSW.
With her feature directorial debut Fucktoys, which won the fest’s Special Jury Award for a Multi-Hyphenate, Sriram told Deadline she hopes to make right-wing audiences “accidentally fall in love” with her queer and diverse cast of characters.
Sriram stars in her 16mm debut as AP, a fun-loving dominatrix who learns from a tarot reader (Big Freedia) that she’s been cursed, and the only way to lift the curse is to come up with $1,000 and sacrifice a baby lamb. Reuniting with her ex Danni (Sadie Scott), the pair hops around Trashtown to earn the fee while encountering some peculiar characters along the way.
“I sort of wrote the script out of feeling like I just want to be in a John Waters movie or a Gregg Araki movie or a Jim Jarmusch movie,” said Sriram. “That’s all I really want, and so I might actually just have to cast myself in that light because I don’t think anyone is going to see me how I see myself.”
After feeling pigeonholed as an actress of color, Sriram assembled a queer cast that includes Freedia, Scott, Brandon Flynn and Francois Arnaud.
‘Fucktoys’ writer, director and star Annapurna Sriram at SXSW.
Glenn Garner/Deadline
The first-time director recalled Scott, who is non-binary, telling her that the role was “the first time I got to actually be myself in a character.” Amid the Trump administration’s mission against trans rights, Scott found that their gender marker was reverted to female on their passport.
“When we made the movie, it was in Trump’s America, and now I’m feeling so much more like, I had no idea how important this would be,” added Sriram. “I didn’t realize how much we’d regressed culturally and now I just feel like, wow, people get to watch them in this film as a trans person, and they get to just have empathy for them as a person. Because they end up sort of being this baby lamb. They’re this pure soul character.”
Read on about Annapurna Sriram’s queer filmmaker influences, her rebellious style of filmmaking and her SXSW Special Jury Award-winning film Fucktoys.
DEADLINE: Tell me about making your directorial debut with this. I read that you really pushed back against anyone trying to change it.
ANNAPURNA SRIRAM: Yeah, I was an actor for a long time, and I’m mixed race, so when I was an actor, I felt like a lot of the acting opportunities I had were very limiting and very racist, to be quite honest. I’m half Indian, half white, but I was getting auditions for, you’re the Muslim character, you’re Iranian, you’re Egyptian, you’re a doctor, and I felt like my acting was so limited to what was already sort of a trope or stereotype that existed culturally for someone like me. And I grew up in Tennessee, and I felt like, “Why can’t I just play a girl? Why can’t I just be the girl in the story?” And in a lot of films, usually the lead was a white girl, and then they’d have a girl of color as the friend, and so then it was all of us minorities sort of competing for the same role. So, I sort of wrote the script out of feeling like I just want to be in a John Waters movie or a Gregg Araki movie or a Jim Jarmusch movie. That’s all I really want, and so I might actually just have to cast myself in that light because I don’t think anyone is going to see me how I see myself.
So then, after I wrote the script — I went to an acting conservatory, and one of my teachers — who’s a director and a dramaturg, helped me develop the script for a year. We did table reads, we did a lot of one-on-one, going through the script. And then I was on a short film, and I made my co-star [Francois Arnaud] read my script. He read the script that night, came back to set and was like, “We should make your movie.” And then at the wrap party, he convinced the producer of that short film to produce my movie. We were partying, and everyone was like, “We’re gonna make Fucktoys!” And I was like, “Oh my god! Are we just on drugs or are we actually committing to this?” So then, we all met up, and in the meeting, him and Francois were basically like, “I think you’re a director.” And I was like, “No, I’m not. I didn’t go to film school. I barely went to high school. I went to acting school, I’ve never written an essay. I don’t know anything about filmmaking.” And they were like, “But you have all the ideas in your head, and we’re not going to find another director that’s a woman, that’s a woman of color, that’s going to understand the canon of camp cinema and arthouse cinema, that this is kind of the daughter of John Waters and all these filmmakers that I’m obsessed with. So, at that point, I was like, “OK, I guess I’m going to be a director now.” And then, COVID hit and. so I used a lot of COVID for what I call my DIY film school, where I just like watched movies, I worked with my cinematographer to shot-list the whole film.
Then, I think a lot of people were really scared of my project, and it took us a long time to finance the movie. Because I think people were like, “She’s untested. The movie is really out there. The title is very out there.” And so, it really took people who loved arthouse cinema and loved the canon to each put in like a little bit to get us to be able to make it. And we were told so much through the process, “You can’t call it this. You can’t shoot on film. You don’t know what you’re doing.” But I think it kind of emboldened us to say, you know what, these are made up in arbitrary rules and this is art. And women are censored, queer filmmakers are censored so much in terms of what they’re allowed to say or express and explore in terms of their own sexuality, that we felt like, if all these fucking cis-straight, white men are going to tell me what I can and can’t title my movie, then I’m gonna actually call it Fucktoys in spite of that. And that’s the rebellious nature of where our title came from.
DEADLINE: I love that. It’s cool to see artists who don’t compromise when it comes to their vision.
SRIRAM: In the process of trying to make Fucktoys, not only did male producers or financiers or filmmakers not take me seriously. Sometimes, they’d also act as if they were serious, and then I’d show up for a meeting with them, and it’s like a date in a restaurant or they would like make a pass on me. So, I’m kind of like, you already perceive me as not a serious person. So, why don’t I just call it out as maybe how you actually perceive me, but like reclaim the word … like the way that Gen Z has reclaimed “cunt,” I’m like, thank fucking God, because I think it’s actually really empowering to take this thing that is supposed to be like, you’re objectified, you’re nothing, you’re dehumanized, and make it your own thing that you’re like, this is my playful usage of this word. And then actually, when I meet people and I say, “Oh, my film is Fucktoys,” if they have this knee-jerk reaction to censor me, it’s a litmus test where I’m like, if you can’t fuck with my title, then you probably aren’t gonna fuck with any of my movie. And that’s good to know.
DEADLINE: I also love that you mentioned John Waters and Gregg Araki as your inspirations. Tell me about how they influenced you.
SRIRAM: When I was in middle school, I watched Polyester and Pecker. I had no concept of camp, of John Waters. It was just me at the library, renting a movie because of the VHS cover, basically. And I was obsessed with Polyester as a kid. My brother and I, and my cousin, we all loved Polyester. We would like reenact Polyester in like eighth grade, and we didn’t understand the importance of it now, to us, it was just really funny. I also loved But I’m a Cheerleader in middle school, I rented that movie at Blockbuster. Because as a kid, when you see that kind of colorful VHS, you’re like, I’m renting this fun movie, and then little do I know, I’m watching this insane gay conversion, Natasha Lyonne, RuPaul movie, but it’s iconic and funny, and that was what made me want to go into this industry. I also loved Boogie Nights as a kid, I loved Snatch, which is a weird Guy Ritchie film, but there’s this really extensive opening credits section hat to me was like peak cinema. And so, my mom also rented A Clockwork Orange when I was in middle school. So, I was like inundated in like fetish, sexy comedies as a middle schooler. And then I went to a performing arts high school in Nashville, which is probably a very shitty school but filled with fun characters. … And then I saw The Doom Generation, I think in college, and then actually, Nowhere was really the movie that — it was the production design, it was all of these characters, the costumes, the weird dialogue that’s fast and pulpy and cartoon. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is another big influence of mine. Crimes of Passion, which is a Ken Russell movie. But even Sweet Charity or Showgirls, I love Showgirls. As a kid I grew up near Deja Vu, the strip club. I really wanted to work at Deja Vu as a kid. They had this sign that was “100 beautiful girls and three ugly ones,” and I remember as a kid being like, “Imagine if you were one of the ugly ones. Oh my gosh, how awful to be one of the ugly strippers.” But now, I get it’s a joke. As a kid, I took it very seriously. But I was always fascinated and I was always like a pervy child and a pervy kid, and then I went on to be a dom and all these other things. But I think that’s what I really thought Hollywood was gonna be like, and then you get into Hollywood, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, it’s network television, and it’s Law & Order, it’s a doctor procedural. And so I was like, where are all the fun movies? And I think that American cinema is yearning for this irreverent, playful, fun movie that isn’t so self-serious, but that is also bringing marginalized voices to the forefront, without needing to make it a PSA.
DEADLINE: The movie is just so beautifully shot. It seems like an Alice in Wonderland fever dream.
SRIRAM: We shot on 16mm. I wanted the film to feel like pre-millennium. I wanted the film to have this feeling of being timeless and sort of like a 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s amalgamation. And I felt like, if it was shot on film, it would have that feeling of if someone found this, like it was buried and then someone discovered this footage, it was like this sort of, “Oh my gosh, look at this crazy movie that was made who knows when.” But I really visually wanted it to be like a kaleidoscope of beautiful images. Because I think the other thing that’s happening with cinema, and no shade to movies now that are shot digitally, but I think that with the streaming boom, a lot of movies look like television, and television looks like movies. They have this very similar look. And I wanted to go back to something that looked like a sexploitation film or a grindhouse film grom the 60s or 70s that was a little rough on the edges, a little bit grainy, a little bit lo-fi, but that is that sole essence of what those films are. Like when you watch Female Trouble, you’re like, “This is rough around the edges, but I’m locked in.” Even though it’s kind of rough around the edges and you can tell it’s made low-budget, you’re still down for the ride.
DEADLINE: Tell me about assembling this talented queer ensemble.
SRIRAM: So, I didn’t actually realize how gay I was making my movie. So, Francois and I did the short film, so he was coming on board. And then the co-lead character was actually supposed to be a guy, and then when I went into casting, I was like, “I don’t really want to give this part to like a cis man. I’m kind of sick of them being in the lead of movies. I would rather give this to like a girl or a non-binary person and just give them an opportunity like this.” Because there’s so many limited opportunities for people of color, for queer artists, for non-binary people to also just play people, where they can be gay, they can be non-binary, they can be black, Asian, whatever nationality. But actually, what their character is is just a person in a story. And to me, that’s what real equity actually would look like for artists of color or of any gender or any sexuality is that they get to have all of their identity, but they also get to be in a movie as a person, first and foremost.
Sadie [Scott] auditioned, and I had seen them in a play many years ago. and they came out in their audition as trans, and I was like, “Oh my God, amazing.” And they wrote to me, and they were like, “I really love this part. Please give me this part. And I know what it’s like to be an actor, a struggling actor. I would love nothing more than to give a hand to someone who is working their way up and to give them that opportunity. and to discover someone. And so, I basically cast Sadie, and then, they were like, “I bind my chest.” And I was like, “Awesome! You can do that. If that’s what you want the character [to do], you can make the character yours.” We shaved their head, we gave them mullet. Tthat was their first time playing a masc-presenting character, and they expressed this to me, they were like, “That was the first time I got to actually be myself in a character.” Because they were usually femme-presenting or a female character. … Now, they have transitioned, they have their top surgery, they’re on testosterone, they are on their journey. Also, when we made the movie, it was in Trump’s America, and now I’m feeling so much more like, I had no idea how important this would be. I didn’t realize how much we’d regressed culturally and now I just feel like, wow, people get to watch them in this film as a trans person, and they get to just like have empathy for them as a person. Because they end up sort of being this like baby lamb. They’re like this pure soul character.
And then Brandon [Flynn] was an old friend of mine, we both went to the same acting school, and I just reached out to him because I love him. Brandon and Sadie have an intimate scene together, and it’s kind of the most Gen Z. And then, Big Freedia was our hopes and dreams person. We got in touch with her manager, and we showed him some stills, and he was like, “Oh my God, this is amazing.” Freedia plays a psychic and she’s hilarious. We had her in a swamp on a raft and she was just the most humble, gracious — I put this beautiful diva on a raft in sweltering heat to sweat in the sun like take a boat back and forth. And she was just amazing, no complaints, just the most lovely human. And then she was like flying to go party with Beyoncé the next day, and I was just like, “Wow, thank you for showing up to my little movie. Go have fun in New York.” So, I think it wasn’t intentional. It just was, these were the people that resonated with the movie and that I love, and that we’re like dream collaborators, and they just all happen to not be cis. And that’s great.
DEADLINE: What would you say about the importance of LGBTQ representation in media right now?
SRIRAM: I think that these stories need to be told by the people that experience these things. When it comes to sex work, that’s one big thing. If you’re gonna make a movie about female sex workers, it needs to be told by women. And I think that what I can do as an artist is just give the opportunity to people like Sadie, where I can put them on a platform where I can show them how they feel that they are, so that they can represent themselves. But I think that this country is slipping into really scary, really dangerous territory. And as artists, it feels silly, because we obviously have to go join the revolution and go on the street and protest. But then as artists, we have to support each other. We have to go see each other’s films. We have to go and spread the word. And I also think it’s being tender and being soft towards other filmmakers that are trying to make these stories, so that they can be elevated and not just shut down or shut out from the industry. I feel like it’s life or death. That’s actually how I feel. I feel like, right now we’re moving towards a life or death scenario in America. And If they’re coming for trans people, they’re coming for gay people, they’re coming for brown people. We’re all on the hit list. So, this is the time when we have to hold together and be strong.
It’s scary, the fact that people like Hunter Schafer, her passport is no longer female. The same thing happened to Sadie. Sadie was flying down here and they’re like, “My passport is no longer my gender. What’s going to happen?” I don’t know how to get to the heart of people on the other side of the aisle. My hope is that if I can make a movie where we show people with empathy, and they’re able to go on the ride and love these people, that they might also love who these people represent, which is non-white people, gay people, LGBTQ people, trans people, people from other countries. That’s my only hope, that we can somehow include them into the audience and into the narrative so that they can accidentally fall in love with these characters, and then maybe that affects the way that they think about people in the world. But I don’t know, it’s a really It’s a pretty scary time.
