Writer/director Ariel Julia Hairston’s screenwriting debut, Both Eyes Open, is a thriller that focuses on Ally (played by Gail Bean), a woman beginning the process of putting her life back together following the end of an abusive relationship. In the midst of navigating her new reality, and haunted by hallucinations from her past, she strikes up a friendship with her yoga instructor, Cara (Joy Brunson). Warned by longtime friends not to trust too quickly, Ally is forced to take a look at her past and present relationships and make decisions as the lines between what is real and what is imaginary become increasingly blurred.

The film also stars Tristan Mack Wilds, Christie Leverette and Taye Diggs and was produced by Roderick McClure’s and Joshua Ferrell’s RodFather Productions. Hairston spoke with me about her experience making this film and the unique creative lens she brings to her projects.

Tell me about the path that led you to filmmaking.

I originally wanted to be a journalist and was studying English in school. But then I took an introduction to media class and realized that media was where I needed to be. I started to explore that, mainly in the area of editing. As a kid, I used to write a lot; novels always intrigued me. So I thought about being a showrunner, and my dream was to eventually have my own show.

I had literally just got out of college, I didn’t know any actors, and I thought, “I’m just going to figure it out.” I started contacting people and did this web series which ended up garnering half a million views on YouTube. I felt like it was successful and that I was headed down the right path, so I started doing some shorts. Then I was offered the opportunity to direct my first feature, called Boxed In – that’s when I realized that I wanted to be a film director more than a showrunner. I love the idea of being able to tell a character’s story from start to finish in a very succinct way. There was something that was kind of beautiful about that to me. And so I knew that this was the path that I wanted to continue going down.

I never wanted to depict violence, but the potential aftermath of what trauma can do to a person who has suffered such violent acts 

What is your approach to filmmaking and how do you want to redefine cinematic norms? What is lacking in the industry and what is done well?

Definitely as a black woman, I feel like one of the main things that is lacking is seeing women of color at the helm. So trying to center women of color is obviously something that has always been on the forefront of my mind. There are obviously many movies that have black women in them… and eventually in my career, I would love to create more diverse films with different types of people from different backgrounds.

Ariel Julia Hairston. Photo by Melissa Alexander

But I also want to be able to do that with a black woman lead and I feel like that’s not something that we see a lot of. Even though we are starting to see more of it, there needs to be still more. And there needs to be more with a black woman behind the camera as well, someone who’s able to tell that story from a firsthand perspective. Who’s able to uplift her community in a way that only she can, because only she has that unique experience. So, I really just want to be able to show black women in a light where they have agency over their lives and are navigating a space where they feel like they can be seen.

Tell me about the personal perspective you bring to your projects and how your experiences have shaped your career.

Going back to being a woman of color, I do believe that my experience, in this industry specifically, already is unique because only about 2% of women directors are black. I’m not sure what the percentage is of writer/directors, but I’m sure it’s also not very high. So, automatically I think I just bring a natural unique perspective to an industry that is primarily made up of white males.

Being a black woman navigating this industry, I feel like sometimes our voices are not valued the way they should be. Sometimes we have to try hundreds of times as hard to get to where we want to be. For me, experiencing that feeling of having to prove myself in ways that my male counterparts don’t has made me want to show women in a light where they have agency. They don’t have to necessarily prove themselves – they can just be themselves. That’s something important to me from my personal experience that I bring to my projects.

Tell me about this film and working with your cast, crew and RodFather Productions.

I’ve known Rod my entire life, so it’s been interesting having someone I’ve seen as a father figure turn into a business partner. I think we did a good job of navigating that and it’s been really rewarding.

My crew was absolutely phenomenal. It could have been very challenging…my entire camera crew was made up of men. It was very easy to question how they might approach the idea of working creatively with a woman. I had absolutely no issues. My opinions were respected, my direction was respected and we were able to really collaborate in a way that was very beautiful. 

I’m a very collaborative person by nature, so I’m always looking for new ideas – “What do you think about this?” and “How can we incorporate that?” My producers did a great job of picking a crew that could really bring a lot of beauty and perspective and fresh ideas to a project to make it even better.

What was great about working with the cast is that they all were playing characters they had never played before or that stretched them in some way. So I think allowing them to play different types of roles than they were used to was also rewarding for me.

Thematically, you focus on the trauma that comes from violence as opposed to the violence itself. Can you comment on that – how uncommon is it in mainstream media and what are the challenges in writing about trauma? What is the importance of it?

I definitely feel like, while trauma itself is not underrepresented, the aftermath of trauma is. Think about how many slavery movies you’ve seen – what about the aftermath of when they were freed and how they were able to navigate that change mentally?

With this movie, it wasn’t an intentional decision to not show her being abused. And to not show depictions of that even in her hallucinations – it’s never clear that she was ever physically abused. I wanted to show the aftermath and the PTSD that you can go through. I personally know people who have had visions of their abusers or of being in traumatic situations, so I felt like I was trying to pull from a real place for people that I know or who are in my life.

In terms of the challenges of that, I think it was a challenge to allow the audience to understand the gravity of the situation without actually having to physically depict it. I wanted Owen to be this ominous character, or for the audience to feel like there’s this looming dread…at the same time, you don’t necessarily know what that is. But you have an understanding of it, especially as someone who can relate to it, right? I’m not here to make trauma porn, I’m here to just tell a story that people can relate to.

You also delve into psychological violence, i.e. manipulation, in the film. Tell me about that.

I’ve always been intrigued by the unreliable narrator trope. What’s real and what’s not? Can we trust what she’s seeing? That was something that I thought would be a challenge for me to write, but I also felt like it was really fun to write. I wanted the audience to feel “something might not be right” and I don’t want to spoil it, but there’s a moment in the film where you start to believe, “Oh, there really is something here with her… I want to root for her.” I wanted to make her multifaceted in that way. There was a lot to play around with and it was definitely very challenging to leave bread crumbs and not give away too much. To have the audience wondering but not spoil it for them. I really enjoyed doing that.

Tell me about Ally and how you developed her character. How did you want to portray her and her relationships to the other characters?

Ally just got out of a shelter and she’s been through a lot. But I also wanted her to be very intentional about how she’s going to rebuild her life. I wanted her to make the decision to join the yoga class and make the decision to get coffee with Cara. I wanted her to make these decisions for herself. Throughout the entire film, she’s very intentional about how she navigates her own life, even when things are happening around her that she can’t control. That was very important for me, that things weren’t just happening to her – she was making real, intentional choices. Even in her relationship with Cara – she’s not immediately trusting.

I wanted her to still have her own opinion. Yes, she came out of an abusive relationship, but she is still very strong and very strong-willed. She knows what she wants and how she wants her life to go.

What are some of the other themes you explore?

I think the immediate thought that people have is trauma, but for me, a big part of what I wrote about is friendship. How to figure out who you can trust and who you can’t trust, and also how to be your own friend. How to learn to trust yourself. The lead characters are three women, despite the whole premise being about Ally and her abuser. It’s three women, coexisting in this space. How is Ally able to navigate that, and what kinds of decisions does she make for her friendships? So for me, at the root of it, I feel like it’s about friendship and about loving yourself and being your own friend through challenging situations.