We tried not to artificially invent pace. I firmly believe that forcing a film to speed up or slow down often goes against the very nature of cinema. Every film already has its own natural rhythm somewhere in the universe; it is the filmmaker’s job to find it. That, to me, is editing.
Comedy complicated all of this because, as I mentioned earlier, my own neurosis about what is funny and what audiences might actually find funny sometimes became a hindering force. So we experimented constantly. We created subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, variations of scenes in pursuit of eventually returning to the emotional essence I was originally after in prep or on set.
Ultimately, my greatest fear was showing the film to people for the first time. Long runs and bourbon helped a little, but nothing compares to genuinely positive and encouraging feedback.
What do you hope audiences will walk away with after seeing Foreign Tongue?
This film communicates not through slogans or certainty, but through curiosity.
Visually, the film exists in a space of grounded poetry and cinematic realism, with room for metaphor. Its rhythms move between light and dark, comedy and unease, intimacy and distance, mirroring the emotional charges within the narrative itself.
I hope audiences feel all of that, but most of all I hope the film contributes to the idea that “foreignness” is not a flaw, but a perspective and that empathy, sometimes, begins with misunderstanding.
“This film communicates not through slogans or certainty, but through curiosity.”
From the immigrant perspective, we are receiving an enormous reaction from people who see themselves in Kathy despite the strange inversion of her story. The sense of ownership the immigrant community feels toward the film and Kathy’s character is beautiful and almost magically absurd. I often have to remind people that Kathy is not actually an immigrant. They do not care.
Mainstream audiences tend to respond emotionally to Kathy’s journey of discovery and her gradual shift in perspective.
I made this film in the hope that audiences might laugh, feel unsettled, recognize themselves, and perhaps leave the theatre seeing the world, and each other, a little differently. I hope that, even for a moment, people think about what it feels like to exist in someone else’s shoes, to consider another person’s predicament and emotional reality.
It is my hope that the film’s gentle approach to these issues, combined with humour, allows it to remain accessible while still provoking thought. That is very much the reaction we have been receiving so far, and I hope it continues as the film gets released worldwide and domestically.
This is a funny and emotional film, and it is actually very difficult to find direct comparisons for it. It’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding with a Bosnian sensibility meeting Fleabag. It is a film for a broad and varied audience, and I genuinely hope people both laugh and cry.
