Cannes 2023: Tiger Stripes | Interview of Amanda Nell Eu (Critics’ Week)

We were pleased to interview director Amanda Nell Eu about Tiger Stripes, which swept the Grand Prize of the 2023 Critics’ Week at the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

The 76th Cannes Film Festival is in full swing. We were delighted to discover Tiger Stripes at the 2023 International Critics’ Week. Set in Malaysia, the film deals with 12-year-old Zaffan who reaches puberty when her body begins to morph at an alarming and horrifying rate. In fear of being labelled as a monster, she struggles to maintain being normal at school by trying to conceal her grotesque self… that is until she decides she no longer wants to hide from the world. We were honored to sit down with director Amanda Nell Eu for a chat about the making of Tiger Stripes and its premiere in Cannes.

Film Fest Report: How did you feel about premiering your film yesterday in Cannes?

Amanda Nell Eu: It was very emotional; I was very nervous. But it was quite amazing because I had been working on this film for many years, since the early 2018. And to finally see it on the big screen with a full audience… this is why we make films. We make films to spread stories to people.

How did you get the idea for the film and what were you really looking for when making it?

What I really love to explore is the female body. And in my approach, the way I like to tell a story is by listening to my own body. It may sound a bit abstract, but the body can tell you so many stories. It has a lot of memory, and it has a lot of emotion. It has pain and it has pleasure. And from this starting point, then I went through my memory of puberty. Puberty being such a violent change for everyone. This is what I wanted to explore.

And then, it turns out I have a sense of humor whereby I view puberty like a body horror, especially if you do not know what is happening to you. It can be terrifying. So, the film deals with that exploration of the body and what it means to be a young girl. Furthermore, it can be very scary because maybe we live in a world where we teach girls to be ashamed and in fear of it.

Friendship appears to be another key element in the movie. The chemistry between the girls is stunning. How did you cast those young actresses and how did you work with them?

We had a long casting process during lockdown and pandemic. We managed to see about over 200 girls, which is amazing during pandemic. And we did that through social media. We would advertise on Instagram and see these girls on TikTok, who had a presence, and of course, we found girls through friends and connections. Then, we managed to meet all of them eventually. I narrowed it down to about 30 girls in the end. And we did a lot of workshops, a lot of acting workshops with an acting coach. And I thought that it was so beneficial because then we built this very safe space where with a lot of trust within the group.

And it turns out that all those girls end up in the film, they are all involved in it. And then, through the workshops, I saw these three girls that had amazing instinct and really fitted the character very well. After that, it was just all very playful. It was such a fun shoot.

Why did you choose to use some TikTok content in the movie?

TikTok is everywhere, isn’t it? It has dominated our lives and the girls grew up with it. When I grew up, we did not have Internet so we would look at ourselves in the mirror as we grew up and we would see the change. As for today’s girls, they see it recorded in this vertical screen and sometimes post it out to public, to the whole world. So, it’s a very strange and different way of growing up and I wanted to show that in the film.

Social media also plays a major role in bullying. How did you approach this topic?

In those workshops I mentioned before, we had a lot of work about sex education, positivity, and self-love. And after we built this trust and respect for each other, we could open up and talk about our personal experiences or what we have seen in our lives. And these girls were pretty much seeing the same stories that I experienced when I was a kid. So, that was how we tackled the topic. But when it came to performing it on set, it was all about playing. We were like, “let’s just play this and let’s have fun!”

Did you encounter any challenges while filming Tiger Stripes?

Overall, there were many challenges. First and foremost, we had a COVID outbreak that made us stop shooting. We also had a flood because we were shooting in the jungle. So, one day, we had to cancel the shoot and move all the department, all the furniture up to a higher ground. And everyone was trapped in the jungle at this point. But this made us really close together, like a community. Besides, the prosthetics and the special effects makeup were another challenge. They do not work well in tropical climates!

Would you describe the aesthetics of the film? And where did you draw your inspirations?

I really wanted to pay homage to a lot of our old horror movies in Malaysia, and their B-movie aesthetics, like old horror where you did not have all this fancy VFX. And I loved that because I think it is really fun and funny. And it is something that I grew up with as well. So, I really wanted this kind of fantasy that would not be too serious and not so realistic. We had so much fun on the set. And everyone in my crew can agree. I think it is also thanks to the girls who brought in all the fun.

Can you share any anecdotes from the filming?

Every time you shoot in Malaysia and in the jungle, there are always some supernatural things. Frequently, people would say that they have experienced something in the jungle. So, it is actually a common practice in Malaysia to recite a prayer every day before we shoot. This way, we would respect the spirits. In that sense, it is quite beautiful because we are respecting the jungle as well, and I think we all should.

Were you also inspired by some specific Malaysian folkloric myth?

Our folktales in Malaysia are never written down, and there is no origin story. So, it always passes through oral tradition. And what I love about oral tradition is that you have tweaks, like Chinese whispers. And Tiger Stripes is my own spin of a lot of these oral stories that I hear. And I am passing it down now and putting it on the big screen for other people to pass down hopefully.

The film depicts a very conservative society. What did you want to say to the world by putting women at the core of the story?

The film is set in Malaysia, but I really wanted to talk about it in a very universal scale. We do not just look at like Muslim countries, but we are also looking at countries that we think are free, like America, where young girls or women do not have control of their own bodies. These are two extremes, but it is the same experience.

So, the film deals with how we can empower ourselves, how we can take ownership of our own body and fight the patriarchy, the power that tries to dominate us. How to turn into tigers and fight back.

To finish, where do you see yourself as a filmmaker in five years from now?

I hope I have the ability to be making more films and putting my voice on the screen. I hope I can keep on telling the stories of women, young girls, and people from all walks of life.

Do you have any projects coming up in the near future?

I have been doing a lot of research because I want to make a period film (it’s not about periods!). It is set in pre-WWII, Colonial Malaya, where everything was really colorful and crazy. We only know it through sepia and black and white photos, but from my findings, it was really vibrant. And the film will deal with motherhood and the pressures of being a wife. And of course, I am going to play with genre and there will be blood!

Acknowledgements: Hannah Farr, Jon Rushton.