Realistic And Confrontational: Farbod Khoshtinat On His Short "Two Little Boys"
Farbod Khoshtinat is an L.A. based Iranian director, editor, and cinematographer. Nurtured and mentored within the Iranian New Wave from a young age, Khoshtinat began expanding those teachings through his academic education in the West. His latest film, Two Little Boys, focuses on a closeted bully who refuses to come out when he is challenged by his victim’s confession of love towards him, leading to unexpected and shocking consequences.
A boy's love for his closeted bully drives him into an unconventional road to confession and its consequences.
This topical short screened at the 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival and it will be screening as a finalist at the 2020 Manhattan Short Film Festival in September. We had the pleasure of chatting with Farbod about the film, its origins, the origin of bullying, and much much more!
How did you come up with the concept for Two Little Boys?
The inspiration comes directly from my childhood. When I was 7, I fell in love with my best friend. When our families found out, we were shamed and punished and I never saw my friend again.
Growing up in Iran where homophobia is a societal norm; my adolescence and school days embodied many similar stories of homophobic incidents that stayed deep within my unconscious.
When I decided to write Two Little Boys, the words poured on the paper. It wrote itself in a day, I realized I was longing to talk about this.
Bullying has always been a consistent concern for youths. While a lot of emphasis is placed on the behavior of the bully, little attention is given to parenting. After all, a bully’s behavior must come from some place, and part of the short’s genius is how it shifts focus to the origins of behavior. In your opinion, how damaging are a parent’s outlooks to their children, and how can they be countered or corrected before it’s too late?
That is very true, for every act of bigotry in adolescents, usually the child gets the blame, not what made them this way. How can we blame the child who was conformed to be homophobic? Do we truly believe that he would have grew up to hate the same way without the influence of family/society?
Education is of course the answer but it is not really that simple. I think most of this bad parenting is somewhat cultural, and to improve upon one’s culture art plays a huge role. From film to literature to any tools that engage people to think about these issues, to have them connect and have empathy with the victims, all in all will have massive positive impact on these problems in the long run.
The film is gripping, tense, and visceral from beginning to end, which is no small feat. How did you work with your team to create this experience, and what were the challenges of sustaining the dread and tension throughout the piece?
Trying to be faithful to the truth in my story, I wanted to have a realistic and confrontational approach to directing as though I'm making a documentary. I used lights available in the location, shot every scene on handheld, avoided makeup etc.
So, I wanted to have a similar approach to the time and pacing as well. I decided to write the script as it’s happening in real time. The film is 13 minutes and all the events that we witness unfolds in 13 minutes, real time. I believe this helped creating an immersive experience for the audience to believe in the scenes and feel the tension by being closer to the characters emotional evolution as the story progress.
The short requires your actors to go to some pretty dark emotional places. How did you find your leads and work with them to develop these characters?
The story revolves around our characters and they are the most important element of our film so I decided to be a perfectionist for the casting. Naturally, casting became the most rigorous part of our pre-production. We auditioned around 80 candidates within 4 months without avail. But as soon as I received Trace's video audition, I knew I had my Josh.
I immediately drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco to audition him in person. Trace had a long history of being bullied and I could believe his delivery. I could feel the pain in it because it was real.
Asa Germann who plays Tyler, on the other hand, was an amazing method actor. In contrast with his character, he has one of the kindest personalities. It just shows how good of an actor he is that he can transform that kind personality into a raging homophobic monster.
What drew you to the visual arts? How did you get into directing?
In my teenage days back in Iran, I happened to be a part of the group of friends that pioneered the Iranian Underground art, from music to murals. I was that 90s kid with a handycam on all the time, documenting the movement. Eventually some of my content got attention and film makers took notice of me. They reached out to me for collaborations and through that, I entered the world of filmmaking.
What films or filmmakers have inspired you, your style, or your approach to telling a story?
I was lucky enough to grow the roots of my path in film making among the brightest of the Iranian Cinema. I was mentored by Cannes awarded Bahman Ghobadi, a protégé of Kiarostami. They have an essential philosophy about film making that anchors in truth. A reality that blurs the line between drama and documentary which I learned a lot from.
After moving to United States, studying Cinema here and working in the industry; I adopted the aesthetics and thrill of the American approach to decorate my initial core understanding of film making.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
Children are so pure and full of love up until we teach them to hate. I wanted to explore this nature of adolescence and how easily a child's character can be shaped by the ugliness of the adult's world. When a child is about to find his/her own identity, that is a very fragile state and we have to be really mindful of our parenting. If we shame them for who they are, they will go on to forever shame themselves.
Do you have any future projects that you can share with us?
I love to explore different ideas throughout my path in filmmaking, and for my next film, I’ll be talking about the concept of faith in the modern era and whether it still has a place in our society. I will also explore agnosticism, which I believe needs to be talked more about but it is rarely discussed.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!