For three cold, windy May days this year, a sailboat moored in Marblehead Harbor became a bustling film set. Led by Marblehead native Molly Greville, the cast and crew of the short film “Waspringa” braved the inhospitable conditions to get the job done and send the film to the post-production phase. Greville wrote, directed and stars in the film.
The 18-minute movie, which Greville describes as a dark comedy and a coming-of-age story, explores the dynamics between family members on their annual sailing trip in Maine. When the daughter, the main protagonist, Liv, is accidentally outed by her siblings, the family is forced to navigate an uncomfortable situation while trapped in close quarters aboard the sailboat in the middle of the ocean.
“It’s about trying to get the people you love to understand you, and the very imperfect ways that families love each other,” said Greville
For Greville, “Waspringa” marks a new chapter in her artistic career. She earned a bachelor of fine arts in theater at Boston University, and has spent the last eight years living in New York as an actor and writer. She has worked in film and theater development, and has written plates, including “Unmentionables,” which was produced at two regional theaters. This film was her directorial debut.
“Definitely being behind the camera was something I’d never done before,” Greville said. “It’s like a totally different language to theater.There were so many moving parts, so it was a totally new learning experience.”
Learning that new language, and leading her own production for the first time, came with plenty of hurdles.
“It was extremely challenging at some points,” Greville said. “There were some times where people were saying things and I literally had to be like, ‘What does that mean?’ It was very humbling.”
Still, she described it as a rewarding experience and chance to grow as a filmmaker and a leader. Filming in Marblehead also gave Greville a chance to return to her hometown, where her love of drama began. The cast and crew of about 30 people in total spent three days filming on a sailboat in Marblehead Harbor, and at Riverhead Beach in May, in what Greville called the “funnest week of my life.”
Each morning, the crew launched from the Boston Yacht Club to reach the boat. In a daily logistical puzzle, they had to transport 19 people and $250,000 in rented equipment to the sailboat before filming, often in cold, rainy and windy conditions. But that was just the first step of the process. Although Greville, who grew up around boats, was comfortable on the sailboat, many of the filmmakers had never stepped foot on deck before, let alone filmed a movie inside of one.
“We had a lot of people on set who were film geniuses, but boating novices. A lot of people had never been on a sailboat,”said Greville. “We definitely had some people throwing up over the side of the boat.”
Despite the difficulties, Greville says the confined setting was essential to the story, because it really lets her explore the complicated family dynamics present in the story.
“The boat for the storytelling mechanism was amazing,” she said. “Because by putting all of these characters in a confined space, it just makes the pressure and stakes so much higher.”
As they finish the post-production work on “Waspringa” this week, Greville hopes to share her movie with audiences at film festivals later this year, and maybe even have a hometown showing in Marblehead. She hopes to use her film to communicate themes about family and new beginnings.
“Families are complicated and imperfect, but that’s okay, and that’s still love,” she said. “And it’s also a coming-of-age movie, so I hope people take away the fact that life begins anywhere. Just because you grew up one way doesn’t mean you have to end up that way. You can start a blank page anywhere.”
