Filmmaker Ry Russo-Young explored tragedy, family, and human relationships with her brilliant 2007 debut feature film Orphans. Having grown up in downtown Manhattan, Russo-Young’s approach to art and filmmaking is infused with reality and personality.

After she graduated from Oberlin College in 2003, Ry made a Super-8 short film entitled Marion. Screening at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, it was a three-screen deconstruction of Hitchcock’s classic Psycho. Marion scooped several awards, including the Jury Prize for Best Experimental Film at the 2006 SXSW Film Festival.

Russo-Young’s Orphans received a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 SXSW Film Festival and was recently released by Carnivalesque Films on DVD. I had the pleasure of chatting (via email) with Russo-Young about Orphans, her casting process, art, the passing of Lily Wheelwright, and what the gifted filmmaker has on the horizon.

Orphans is, at its core, a film about how tragedy impacts human relationships. The characters are wounded by grief and are struggling to find some semblance of reconciliation. Why do you think these stories are so appealing to us as human beings?

I think these themes appeal to us because we all experience them in some way, regardless of the specifics of our lives. These are pretty universal themes and have been around forever — it's part of what it is to be human.

I noticed that your directorial style really allowed for the characters to serve as their own entities without interference, almost like a two-person play. Was this effect intentional and how do you think it helped audiences connect with the situation on screen?

Working with actors (or non-actors) is always collaboration. I want the people I cast to bring their own substance to the character and wind it into the existing work. In Orphans, the staged element was intentional because there are multiple performances at play within the film. Mainly, the sisters are performing for each other, each sister pretending to have a normal life. I think sometimes audiences weren’t sure if the actors were “acting” or if the characters were “acting” but in the end, both the actresses James Katharine Flynn and Lily Wheelwright did an incredibly honest job with the roles.