The“ RITE” Stuff
By: Renso Amariz
The film“ Rite” which won‘ Best Louisiana Short’ at the 2015 New Orleans Film Festival, is every bit as gorgeous as it is mysterious.
It follows two teenage boys as they gather obscure ingredients to perform a spell from their Grandmother’ s Voodoo book. Despite warning signs, they still attempt to perform the ritual, but the results may not be what they expected.
The film’ s producer is a confident and determined woman from Belarus. Along with Rite she entered another film in the 2015 New Orleans Film Festival,“ Us Against the World.” Both films ended up winning awards, with“ Us Against the World” winning Best Sound.
I sat down with Anastasiya to talk about these films and her filmmaking ventures.
What was your background that brought you into filmmaking?
I’ m originally from Belarus, which is in Eastern Europe, where I’ ve done theater. Mostly theater, the film industry is not existent in Belarus. I moved here in 2010. I enrolled at UNO where I graduated from business school, so I have a degree in business administration, which helps me produce movies. I guess I combined my passion for art and film with
Photo Courtesy: Anastasiya Rul some business knowledge, and skills that I have. Since I moved here I’ ve continued acting and to keep myself busy. I decided to do some behind the camera stuff like writing and producing, so I started making short films, won a few awards for some of them and I’ m in the process of making my own production company. So I can move on to some serious stuff in feature films.
Did you choose UNO for a reason?
It was the only school that accepted my credits from my school in Belarus, but the programs seemed to be interesting enough.
So it was kind of fate that brought you here it wasn’ t like you said,“ Oh! New Orleans that’ s where I want to go”
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