From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment, the Home Edition. I'm Elvis Mitchell. My guest, writer, director, and

sometimes actor, Gen X-Bra Bravo, has done a few terrific

short films, but we're here to talk about her feature film, Zola.

First of all, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Something I've come to look to you for in your work, which is you have a feel for, I think,

staging, for proximity, and for costume. And it's all there in abundance in feel for, I think, staging, for proximity and for costume.

And it's all there in abundance in Zola, I think.

Yeah, you know, I went to theater school.

So I think that that's part of my rulebook.

I went to this program at NYU where the focus was, it was called Playwrights Horizons theater school and the focus was

directing design with a dash of acting and there isn't a version of my work that exists without that

and I am at the very least really comfortable with blocking you know everything, everything might be falling apart, but I can

block the shit out of a scene. Well, not a lot of directors can, and I can always feel a

presenium arch in your work sometimes. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I, uh, I love playing in the

wide. And I think that's, that's the theater kid in me is really like staging and playing in the wide, and I think that's the theater kid in me, is really like staging and thinking in the wide and, you know, you use the word proscenium.

I feel there are a good deal of shots in Zola where you feel that, right?

We're sort of on the stage and the camera is the audience that we're playing to and being able to use

blocking to also indicate where a character is at right our focus is zola and a good deal of

the staging and framing is meant to kind of isolate her so we're consistently reminded that

she is not only our narrator but our our protagonist and our core, right?

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