Festivals Udine All Festivals January 24 , AM. Ben Croll. Tweet Post Submit. Xan Cassavetes has had one hell of a showbiz story. Daughter of John and Gena, she made her screen debut in her father's films Husbands and Minnie and Moskowitz. Later, she toured for almost ten years with the group Shrine before taking up the family business in with the documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession.
We spoke this past fall at the incredible Strasbourg International Fantastic Film Festival, where her erotic vampire feature KIss of the Damned took the top prize. How many times do you get to write that? Well, I didn't choose it actually! I tried to make about a million other movies before, but this was just the first one to get off the ground.
I'm glad to have made a vampire first though. There's something very loose about the genre and this film in particular. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and you're encouraged to sort of play with vampires and their milieu, you're given a whole set of metaphors to twist at your will. It gives you a kind of artistic freedom - which is the best way to make a film.
The big homages aside, there are a lot of references in the work that aren't necessarily genre film specific. That's really cool. I hadn't even thought of that but I like it.
Just like William Holden, Paolo is someone whose life is pretty aimless. At the point of entry of the movie we find him kind of despondent in an emotional way, and that's what gets them both into trouble. You reference not just specific films, but the industry itself.
