LA GRANDE — The 15th annual Eastern Oregon Film Festival will feature “The Green Flash” by directors Jodi Cash and Ethan Payne. This is a [heavily] abbreviated interview with Payne. You can find the full interview online at goeasternoregon.com/now_playing.

Go: Obviously, we can send off a film and let it speak for itself. What do you guys hope to bring to a festival by your attendance?

Payne: A curiosity and a desire to connect with other filmmakers. I think, especially in our case because we’re such a small crew, we’re all best friends, but filmmaking can be a really isolating task, especially in the edit room. And so these festivals are an incredible time to just connect with people who do the same thing that you do and have experienced the same things that you do and sometimes experience the same isolation. So in our experience, being around other filmmakers has just been so enriching and creatively and emotionally nurturing just to be around other people.

Go: So y’all started out working together not in the documentary medium. You were working in photography. And so do you have a background in documentary, or is your background in photography?

Payne: I was, I actually do mostly documentary work, short docs for nonprofits, and things like that. Shooting stills is probably the least of my professional work. I was more of, yeah, more of a doc filmmaker at the time, but was super glad when my friend asked me to shoot some photos and go down to Florida and hang out.

Go: And so I guess with your respective backgrounds, how does that translate into your division of labor when working on a project together?

Payne: It’s just been such an easy and incredible collaboration. As someone who’s used to shooting a lot by myself, it’s incredible to be able to focus on making an image look the way I want to knowing that Jodi is the one that’s gonna be mostly in the chair, chatting with the interviewees, and, it was just an incredible division of skills and labor that way.

And I would, you know, I would chip in every now and then during the interviews, but it was nice to have someone lead the room. And Jodi was definitely the leader in the room during the interviews.

Eastern Oregon

Film Festival

Film critic B. E. Grey will be previewing films leading up to the Eastern Oregon Film Festival, Oct. 17-19 in La Grande.

For more information, or to purchase festival passes, visit eofilmfest.com.