Tribeca 2024: My Best Friend | Interview with Elina Street & Maxwell Gately

Elina Street has been making a lasting impact by telling female and non-binary stories. Audiences have previously seen her hard work on the Roku Channel docu-series The Lesbian Bar Project. She has numerous TV credits and has worked on commercials, leading as the director and AD for Chanel and, most recently, Vogue. Now, the Emmy Award-winning French-American director has completed her third and very intimate short film, My Best Friend, which made its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival 2024. The film follows Clara (Marie Zabukovec) and Léa (Lana Boy) as the best friends go on a staycation and unexpectedly sleep with each other. Street’s film explores the challenges of a close friendship and deep intimacy, all while Clara is recovering from a breakup. Film Fest Report connected with Street and her producer Maxwell Gately to discuss their collaboration and working on this latest project.

Kristin Ciliberto: What were both of your goals for this project? Why did you both want to share this story?

Elina Street: I wanted to tell this story because it felt personal to me. I’ve been working in the documentary realm for the past few years, and I was missing a space where I could work with actors and workshop a script. I’ve always wanted to work with an intimacy coordinator and explore this topic on screen. I conceptualized My Best Friend from that desire. I’ve always wondered about the limits of intimacy between friendship and romance. This was just a great opportunity to tell the story, and that’s how it all started for me.

Maxwell Gately: I started my production company about two years ago. I have about 20 years of experience in the film industry, and my executive producer, creative director, and business partner, Amy Fruchtman, has about 15 years. We reached a point where we thought we should be doing this for ourselves. Why were we running other people’s films and working with other people’s companies when we knew how to do this ourselves? So, we started our own company. I think the first phone call I made was to Elina, and I was just like, “I want to make something good. What do you have? Whatever it is, we’ll shoot it.” And literally sight unseen, we committed to this because I’ve known Elina for almost nine or ten years now, which feels like a very long time. I just have a lot of trust and faith in her. Elina mentioned she’s got a lot of experience in the documentary world. She did The Bletchley Park Project, which, if you haven’t seen it, I recommend. It’s beautifully shot. Just knowing Elina and knowing where she’s coming from and who she is as a director, I think the intention was to do something to show off our skills. There is director Elina, who can work with actors, create an emotion in a room, and also in the audience; and myself as a producer; and Amy, my business partner, who, as you know, owns a production company. She’s more in the creative direction. She helped Elina hone in on the intention and final execution of the scripts and showed us what we can do. It’s extremely satisfying. This was our first job for the company. Now here we are at Tribeca, and the film has already been to BFI, and we’re waiting to hear back very shortly from other film festivals. We’re feeling very optimistic. Based on how I am, I always believe in supporting directors and helping people get what they want, as long as it fits into a larger piece. I’m very much a cinephile. I’m someone who loves a well-composed image and thinks about visual language. It’s all I can think about. It’s probably a sickness; I might need to seek help. Working with someone like Elina, who knows what she wants and has such a good grasp of how to make it happen and how to get that, is like a blessing, a dream come true.

Elina Street: Then, off of that, yes. I had a clear vision, and I felt extremely well guided and supported. That was what I was also looking for—having that extra supportive system around me that elevated my vision.

Kristin Ciliberto: I love seeing all the support Maxwell gave you, Elina. Is there anything that you both learned while working on this as artists?

Elina Street: Yes, definitely! There’s always something that you learn, and I think the biggest thing I learned was in terms of intimacy on screen. It’s never easy, and I learned how to foster a safe space. I did that with the help of Maxwell and Amy. We had very long conversations about how to make sure our actors felt comfortable, but also our crew. One of the things that Max and Amy encouraged me to do was to hire an intimacy coordinator, even though it’s a short film. It doesn’t mean that we didn’t need one. At the end of the day, an intimacy sequence is an action sequence. You need someone to help facilitate that. Even though my actresses were both very comfortable with the scene, having shot many similar scenes in the past, Max and Amy encouraged this, and we ended up okay. We still decided to hire an intimacy coordinator. Even if she wasn’t always on set with us, she was there. She might not have been actively talking to the actors, but at least she was present. This was the first time the actresses had been asked how they felt on set, and they had never had those conversations before. That opened great, beautiful performances, but also very intimate and vulnerable moments that are not easy to sometimes control. That was something I learned from you (referring to Maxwell): a film is a collaborative effort. It’s so important to surround yourself with the right people. I can’t recommend that enough.

Maxwell Gately: Just touching on that. Elina told us she had an intimacy coordinator she talked to about the script before she talked to us, and she was thinking about bringing her on. When we cast our actresses, they’re both lovely friends— that’s the best way to describe them. They’re very down for whatever. I think that all of us who are filmmakers have been in situations where we’ve said yes, and then when we want to say no, there’s a certain emotional wall you put up to say, “I’m going to do what it takes to get through this.” For us to intentionally bring down that wall and sort of crack that facade of “this is fine” and then be like, “Well, is it fine? Are you fine?” It’s all about the atmosphere, it’s all about the electricity on set. We took the time to make sure we were doing the right thing, we took the time to make sure we could do as much right as we possibly could for the entire film. There’s also certainly a level of, how do I say, these actresses are our friends and we want to take care of them. We shouldn’t be abusing our friends. Whether they’re our friends or not, we should be taking care of the people we work with, taking care of the people making our movies with us. It’s extremely difficult to make something for almost no money and ask for a bunch of favors. To abuse people on top of it isn’t really right. I like making movies, and everyone has their own style. I don’t want to knock it.

Elina Street: Yeah, I would also say it’s about fostering this community by having great people on set. Max, Amy, and I had conversations about who we were hiring on our set, and we did prioritize women. We had our director of photography present as early as rehearsals on his end, and it was amazing. I learned a lot from working with the right people who give you their time because they care and respect the project.

Maxwell Gately: If I could change one thing, it would certainly be to have way more money so I could pay him and other people for all the free work they gave us. As far as learning things, you always learn something on every shoot. It was fun to learn just how well we meshed together, not just as people below the line who work together but with people above the line who make it work.

Kristin Ciliberto: I love that! Well, I will just expand on that answer. Elina, you mentioned that 90% of this film had a female crew. What does it mean to you as a filmmaker to have that female-supported atmosphere?

Elina Street: I’ve worked in the film industry for 15 years, and I’ve often found myself as a minority of women on set. I think we still have a long way to go. For me, it’s important to prioritize women on set, but also allies—people who understand why they are there and are happy to be part of the project. It’s about creating that safe space. It was so beautiful and empowering to be surrounded by so many women because we noticed one thing that we talked about a lot. Every time we complimented each other on set, we would never take the compliment. We always said, “Oh no, it’s not me, it’s her.” “Oh, she’s doing it.” And it’s so funny. We realized, “Wait a second, this is such a nice set.” We’re so not used to taking compliments. It became this ode to women. Working with Max was wonderful. You’re such a kind, respectful soul (complimenting Max). Every time Max walked onto set, he said, “How do you feel? Is it okay if I’m here? I understand if you need a little bit more time.” There’s this nice open communication that was very respectful.

Maxwell Gately: I do want to build off this just to say that while it’s true having mostly females on a movie set was very important and helpful, it also isn’t something that’s exclusive to this type of film. Part of the larger framework here is that we made a movie with our friends. These are people we’ve all worked with and known for a very long time. Across the board, they’re all incredible filmmakers. On one hand, we prioritized hiring females, but on the other hand, we prioritized hiring the best people we could find who are all good friends of ours. I mean, that’s good, and it helped us fill out the crew. If we hadn’t prioritized females, it would have been 80% women. For positions like production assistant, third grip, and others, we were like, “Let’s try to find a woman if we can, and if not, anyone’s fine.” As far as the key positions go, I think those would have been our key players whether or not we were trying to make any sort of statement.

Elina Street: Yes, they’re all incredible filmmakers. That’s the fine line. It’s exciting to know that they are women, but it doesn’t mean they still need to be good at what they do.

Kristin Ciliberto: What made it important for Lana and Marie to work together, and what made them such a perfect pairing for this film?

Elina Street: I have worked with Marie in my previous short, and she had a supporting character role that was not as nuanced. It was a much harder character. I wanted to work with her in a role that felt more nuanced. I also wanted to challenge her by having her speak English. She had always said to me that her dream was to come to New York. I asked her how she would feel about doing a bilingual role. So that was her challenge. Performing the role of Nia, she’s also a French-American expat like me. That was important for me. The language was important because I wanted them to communicate in this bilingual way that would bring their characters closer. It’s like their language, which is very particular to them, brings them closer. Also, they both have this worldly quality just as actresses. Lana worked in France in the past, and Marie was also working in France. Marie and Lana knew each other from there. They didn’t go to the same acting school but had the same acting friends. They knew of each other and had seen their careers grow. It was funny because Lana would say, “Wow, Marie’s doing great things!” and then she would report to me saying, “Oh, wow, Lana is doing great things!” So I thought it would be interesting for them to finally meet because they were excited about seeing each other. I brought them together, and the chemistry was amazing. I also sent them off to get their nails done and hang out. That just reinforced their chemistry. They spent a week together in rehearsals. It wasn’t a full week—I think it was like four days—but I sent them off. They also did some things together outside rehearsals, which I thought was very important.

Kristin Ciliberto: Their friendship seems genuine in the film, which was nice to see. It’s like you’re almost following them in a documentary. I give you a lot of praise for that because it seemed like you were just following another Saturday or Sunday, with ordinary friends doing their thing.

Elina Street: Honestly, that was the goal. So I’m glad it worked out.

Kristin Ciliberto: My final question for both of you is, My Best Friend had its premiere at BFI – FLARE: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival and is now showing at Tribeca. What does it mean to both of you that the film is being shown at various film festivals?

Elina Street: It’s extremely exciting! We have Tribeca this month, and then we have Provincetown International Film Festival. We are also showing it at the Palm Springs International Shortfest and Frameline. They are all Oscar-recognized film festivals, which is very exciting. As Max was saying, we have a list of festivals we are waiting to hear from. It’s so wonderful to hear that this story has touched so many people’s hearts. Yes, there’s a clear lens, but it’s also a universal story. It’s been wonderful to hear feedback from everyone saying, “Oh, this has happened to me,” or “I could connect to this, and I feel I can relate to this.” That’s the best compliment I could receive as a director. Lana and Marie are both thrilled about that as well. They felt connected to their characters and put a lot of work into it. They’re happy about the results.

Maxwell Gately: It’s extremely humbling. I’m so honored that we’re at Tribeca and get to do our US premiere here in our hometown with our friends and family. While we were making the movie, I would say, “It’s going to premiere at Tribeca,” and I believed that on the inside because you have to, but that didn’t have to happen. Saying this now, I’m so honored. The BFI premiere was great for Elina, who went to school in London and has been to the BFI before. Then to have the US premiere here and look at these other festivals—our film is currently hitting a zeitgeist of cautious optimism, as Elina said. A lot of people have messed around with their best friend, and it doesn’t matter your gender or orientation. It’s a movie for human beings, and not to toot my own horn, but it’s a well-made movie. It’s well shot, well written, and extremely well-acted. Our cinematographer Alexa Carroll deserves a lot of praise. I was watching Alexa just do it so effortlessly, putting the camera in places, and it looked so beautiful. The acting is also so good! I’ve seen good acting with bad cinematography before, but that’s not what happened. There’s a level of professionalism we bring to it. It’s so nice to have a shot list and storyboards and not fake it. We’re there, and we know what we want. Then with that, it opens the door to beautiful imagery and using cinematic language to support the intent of the film and what we’re trying to say. Elina is just so spectacular. That’s how I feel about being back.

Kristin Ciliberto: You both should be very proud of your hard work. I can’t wait to see what you both do next.

Elina Street: I’m developing my first feature with Max and Amy. The lead character is based on Clara, but it’s like a prequel to who she is, exploring her coming of age when she was in her early 20s. So I’m keeping some aspects of her life and developing that further.

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