Sarah Pirozek and Her Feminist Genre Opus, #Like

Yeah! You have something coming up called The Squatters Handbook, and I was curious about that.
It’s my coming-of-age story. I was kind of a posh boarding school type girl. Then my father died and my mum, just sort of, took off with her boyfriend, leaving me on my own. Through a series of events, I ended up in London living in this very multi-racial, multicultural neighborhood called Brixton, which you’ve probably heard of. It’s very West Indian actually. I fell in with a group of political squatters. From 16 on, for five years, I lived off-grid. We would break into houses to live. It was government housing that they had boarded up and just left, and there was this massive housing need for affordable housing, etc. So, for five years, we did that and we had a food co-op and a place for the kids. It wasn’t like here (NYC), where it’s more punky druggy. There it was more idealistic. It was just like an ideal world, you know. Many single moms did it because they had deadbeat dads or had chosen to leave a bad situation. We did a thing where everyone took turns taking care of the kids so that people could do their own thing.

That sounds cool.
Yeah, it was very cool. We also had a housing co-op, and to this day there is still affordable housing that we got funding to create these houses.

That’s really cool, so is the movie a documentary or fiction?
It’s fiction. I’m changing it into a series so I can tell more stories. What was really cool about it is my real neighbor was this 65-year-old Rastafarian named Ramsey, who had a whole story that was very interesting. I, of course, ended up having my West Indian boyfriend and his story is very interesting. It’s going to be based a little around Alex Wheatle, one of the characters in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series. So, it’s going to be an eight-parter.

“…as a woman, there was no way anyone was going to take me seriously or fund my film…”

The other story is the feminism and the single moms and the other women who were older than me, that’s really interesting. It was the era of the second wave of feminism. It was very radical. The two final parts are the first official gay commune of squatters, the Radical Pink Fairies of Brixton, who had a theater group and were very instrumental in the riots. It was an extremely interesting time. The final part is the young police officer who is very racist and very challenged and compromised in how he was doing his job. It talks about institutional racism in the police force and all that. So it’s a whole thing, it’s a lot.

That sounds amazing. I’m really looking forward to it. I just have one more thing I want to ask you before we go. This might sound a little sanctimonious but I’m curious. Do you feel like it’s your job as a filmmaker to make political statements, or do you think it should just be left to the “professionals?”
I think that’s a really good question, too. I think that everything is political. How you wear your hair is political. How you buy your food is political. As an artist, of course, what you say is political. Having said that, I don’t think preaching is the way to go. That’s why I made a kind of—I wouldn’t call it a trashy movie, but it was definitely a genre movie that pushes the envelope on good taste. I definitely put him in a pink, frilly apron for a reason…that people will remember that. Certain accouterments are pink. You know what I mean?

I did want to make something that’s memorable. Something that’s going to piss people off. It’s unforgettable. It’s unapologetically feminist, unapologetically angry. That’s why in some ways, Rosie was very right in the end but also very wrong. I’m not going to talk about it too much because I don’t want to give too much away. No one is 100% right about anything, and I hope the film also talks about I’m not endorsing vigilantism. We need to look at toxic masculinity because who’s toxic in the film. Rory’s toxic for sure. Why is Rory toxic? It’s hinted that he’s left by his dad, who pissed off and didn’t raise his son correctly. The chickens came home to roost, didn’t they? So political yes, I guess I am, but I didn’t need to make a documentary.

That’s what I liked about #LIKE. It had layers. It’s sort of a horror movie, but it also had a striking message that wasn’t too precious or anything because that happens a lot. So I think you really hit the nail on the head.