JOE PENNA first entered my radar several years ago with his feature film debut of “Arctic” starring Mads Mikaelson. Already with a stellar resume and huge following on YouTube thanks to his music videos, commercial work, and short films, as writer/director Joe made the leap into feature narratives with ARCTIC, a film that makes you ask, “What took him so long” to move into this expanded storytelling. He has a gift for asking and exploring the hard questions, those often unspoken questions that revolve around man’s survival and his solitude, self-preservation, those moral complexities that speak to the human condition. He spoke to those issues in “Arctic” and does so again with STOWAWAY.
With a small cast compromised of Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim, and Shamier Anderson, and an equally small and confined location of a small space station, STOWAWAY tackles the moral complexities of life, asking the questions of do I survive or not survive, to what lengths will a man go to survive, is there compassion and understanding for life beyond one’s own. Joe tackles these themes, and as he did with “Arctic”, brings it to life in not only an emotional way, but a very tactile and tangible sense. With every gleaming and not so gleaming surface, every darkened corner, with every resistor and condenser, old technology mixed with new, that tangibility makes the emotionality and the mental questioning something that is resonant, that we can hold on to, that we can see. Focused, powerful, probing, and intimate as each individual must grapple with decisions one hopes to never have to make. What happens when an accidental stowaway puts the mission in jeopardy by damaging life support and jeopardizing resources? Who lives? Who may die?
A thoughtful and exacting director with his work, Joe is equally as thoughtful in conversation. With a continuing rapport that we established with “Arctic”, I spoke with Joe in-depth about STOWAWAY as we dove into the genesis and development of the story, creating compelling yet contained visuals thanks to production designer Marco Rosser and cinematographer Klemens Becker, editor Ryan Morrison’s challenges of editing and finding pace, the magic of composer Volker Bertelmann and a prepared piano score, and more.
TAKE A LISTEN. . . . .
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 04/10/2021
