Producers encouraged director Michel K. Parandi to take his time and audition as many actors as possible for the role of Baxter in his long-gestating science fiction film April X, but the French-American director knew early on that he was playing Conor Story. What he didn’t know was that months after filming wrapped, there would be a global uproar over his role in director Jacob Tierney’s Rivals, and Story would make him one of the world’s hottest stars almost overnight.
It took director Parandi some time to accept the impact that Story’s newfound fame would have on his film, which opens at this year’s Raindance Film Festival on June 17. The director is now grateful for the growing interest in the story, recalling that from the moment he first saw it, he knew the young actor was destined to do something big.
“I remember early on telling everyone he was going to be a movie star,” Parandi told Variety. “It’s funny, there’s a book where Ridley Scott talks about Harrison Ford in the original Blade Runner. After the movie, someone called him and asked, ‘How was it working with Harrison?’ And he said, “He’s a movie star.” I imagined myself in it. There was something special there. ”
“April X” is a near-future thriller centered around brother and sister Baxter and April (Lily Krug). When April suddenly goes missing, her brother searches every nook and cranny of the post-Soviet city they live in, and finds himself in an increasingly dangerous situation as he uncovers a dangerous scheme involving cloning and sex trafficking.
The director said he auditioned about 100 actors for Baxter, and the story was the third or fourth. “During the audition, he was very comfortable and very natural. They wanted me to be seen by more people, so I basically said to Connor, ‘You’ve got this role, but please give me a little more time.'”
The newcomer’s storyline was uncredited at the time, and his future work was kept “secret” by the team. But Parandi trusted his instincts. “I could see that (Conor) had been mentally calm and prepared for a long time,” he continued. “If someone is natural, you don’t have to do the heavy lifting to deliver something believable. That’s a good base to work with. There’s also a bit of method to acting with him, which I really like. He sticks to his ideas and is very fast. Production-wise it was perfect. He was very easy and smooth, on time and always ready to perform.”
Connor Story from “Heat Rivalry,” courtesy of Crave
Parandi points out how Baxter is a “challenging” part because it relies on “nuances.” “I couldn’t let[Connor]break, I couldn’t allow him to cry. I had to find a balance where he remains vulnerable in a way that’s believable, but also has these crazy sci-fi plots unfolding around him. There’s also layers of anger, angst, and rage. To transition seamlessly from one side to another isn’t something everyone can do without a lot of effort.”
“It was also very difficult to shoot,” the filmmaker added. “We shot half the movie on a cold -15 degree night, so we needed a solid character that we could trust. And Connor was the most solid performance I’ve ever played.[He’s]the best thing about this movie, and that’s no coincidence. No matter the story, no matter the budget. It was a conscious decision to put most of my ammunition into that department because I always thought that the lead actor has to carry the movie. He’s in almost every shot in the movie, so it has to be someone that people want to meet, and that was very important to me. ”
Asked what he thought about the rapid rise in storylines influencing public interest in April X, Parandi said he initially feared that the audience looking for his film would be very different after watching Rivals, but his fears were allayed by the film’s producer, Lavinia Postolace. The producers made an effort to get to know the story’s fans and were there to carefully check their reactions during tests and festival screenings. “They were crying during the movie because of Baxter,” Parandi says now. “I was happy.”
The director faced several drawbacks in making the film, and it took more than ten years from the initial idea to filming due to lack of funding. Despite considering locations in Asia and North America, Parandi ultimately decided to shoot the film in Bucharest, allowing him to keep the budget low despite travel expenses for the main cast and crew.
When talking about location scouting, the director says, “I didn’t want to make a clinical science fiction movie that was pretty neat.” “I wanted to feel a gritty, urban grittiness. It’s interesting because as we move into the future, we realize that things aren’t getting cleaner and everything is going to be more extreme. Europe allowed us to do that. Romania has a texture. I came alone to scout and was impressed by Bucharest. I thought of Baxter being lost and wandering through the corridors of this lost world. It reminded me of Berlin 25 years ago.
Shot in Bucharest, the director drew on genre influences such as The Matrix and Enter the Void while building on “the idea of a new European Union synergy in Eastern Europe.” “Everything made sense to me geopolitically,” he added. “It’s funny, we’re kind of heading there, and in a weird way Eastern Europe feels a lot more like Europe than Western Europe.”
Although Parandi regrets not having the budget to realize his more ambitious and broader original vision, he is proud of the fact that he was able to bring this powerful science fiction to life for less than $2 million. “The first draft was completely different, more aggressive, even bigger in scope,” he recalls. “There was a lot of backstory and flashbacks for the characters. We had to readjust the scope depending on the budget. Once things cooled down a bit more, the movie was completed.”
