‘Two People Exchanging Saliva’ directors interview

Two People Exchanging Saliva depicts an alternate reality that's not an especially nice place to visit or live. Directed by visual artists-turned-filmmakers Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh, the 35-minute short film unfolds in a world where kissing is outlawed and citizens consume massive quantities of onions and garlic gum as an insurance policy against any saliva-swapping.

But just because they can't lock lips doesn't mean these citizens can't fall in love. The story follows the romance that blossoms between a novice department store employee and the wealthy woman that catches her eye... and steals her heart. Filmed in shimmering black-and-white, Two People Exchanging Saliva is, in some ways, a valentine to the Hollywood and European romantic dramas of the 1940s. In a revealing making-of interview, Musteata and Singh explained their inspirations for the film — and why narrator Vicky Krieps deserves credit for the eye-catching title.

Gold Derby: You’ve talked about the origins of the movie and how the Iranian women’s revolution was an inspiration. Tell us more about how that real world event played into the film.

Natalie Musteata: When we were writing the film in late 2023 and early 2024, there were so many things happening in the news that felt really absurd. I should say that my family comes from community Romania — they came to the U.S. in exile, and I grew up hearing about these very absurd stories that didn’t feel real, like people waiting on endless lines to get chicken feet, because the chickens were being sold to other states and all that was left were the feet. Meanwhile, the government was saying that the country was prosperous and that they were living through a golden age!

So I grew up with these stories of absurdism being baked into these autocratic regimes, and at the same time we were writing the film, there was a new election in the U.S., Ron DeSantis bringing back “Don’t Say Gay” laws in Florida, and the women’s movement in Iran. There was one news story that really shocked us about an 18-year-old couple that were dancing in front of the “freedom tower” in Tehran and they were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. We though, “How can we live in a world where that’s possible?” So many of these things we might remark upon sound absurd, but we also accept them. As humans, we’re good at getting used to absurd things very quickly as a mode of survival.

Alexandre Singh: It’s not just that we accept these rules, but we take them into our hearts and start to judge others for not following them. We very quickly acclimatize ourselves to almost any situation.

That’s something that really struck me about the film, the way that people accept these objectively absurd norms.

Musteata: We also wanted to have a story led by three women from different generations who respond to the rules of the world in very different ways. There’s Pétulante (Aurélie Boquien), who has lived in this world for so long, she doesn’t know how to do anything but accept the rules. She's a character that, for me, you know, does have desires, she’s just really repressed them. Then there’s our principal character, Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) who knows there's something wrong, but doesn't really know how to break out of the social conformity. And then of course there's Malaise (Luàna Bajrami) who — like the Iranian students — and isn't so rooted in her life that she can't stand up for what's right. She is someone that takes a lot of risk. We thought it was really important to represent these very complex characters that respond very differently to the absurd rules of our world.

Let’s set up some of those rules: The film takes place in a world where kissing is not permitted, and slaps take the place of currency. Feel free to elaborate with more!

Singh: Those are the two main rules, but they also have consequences. In this world, people pay for things by being slapped in the face. It’s also a sign of wealth — if you get slapped a lot, you end up having a lot of bruises, so people from the lower classes paint on bruises to appear as if they’re wealthy. So this really ridiculous premise starts to have serious consequences that we recognize in our own society and the same is true of kissing.

Musteata: Our film recently launched on the New Yorker website and the writer, Doreen St. Félix, observed that the face in a close-up is a prize element of cinema, and here we are disfiguring it, and what a radical act that is. One of the things that was definitely in the back of our minds was how in 1940s Hollywood cinema, people would slap one another right before they embraced. It was like a form of foreplay! And in our film, the two actresses ho start to fall in love with one another end up subverting this very violent act. They make it their own.

Singh: The film is a love story between two women, and there's a bit of a paradox because while same-sex relationships are actually quite normal in this world, the film is quite clearly a metaphor for how many types of intimacy — especially queer love — have been suppressed throughout all societies.

Speaking of classic Hollywood, the choice to shoot the film in black-and-white lends it a Golden Age feel as well. Did you always know that was going to be your approach?

Musteata: We decided on that very early. There were certain films that inspired us like Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida and Cold War, as well as Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire.

Singh: Especially in an environment like a department store, color can distract. That's what it's there for, to distract and entertain us. The black and white really foregrounds the characters, who shine in this very metallic world full of mirrors in which they're always observed. It reveals how things actually are — almost like an X-ray image.

Musteata: There were also practical considerations. We were shooting in a working department store that's open seven days a week, and they have really long hours. We knew that we would be able to shoot from midnight to 6 a.m., and every morning we’d have to reset. We wanted to reduce the visual noise, but also to put our own imprint on it, and this was one way to impose our aesthetic language on the film.

Singh: Natalie and I also have backgrounds in the visual arts — we're not actually originally filmmakers. I've been a visual artist for a couple of decades now…

Musteata: And I did a Ph.D. in art history! But Alex and I would constantly talk about cinema. He was like, “I really feel like we should be making films.” And I’d say: “We don’t know how to do that!” Slowly, over the years, he would pass me books about film production or screenwriting and we taught ourselves. And then one day, we set off on making our first short film and ever since then, we’ve never looked back.

Singh: I often say to Natalie, the cheapest thing you can do on a film set is put the camera in the right place. That costs nothing! We prepared for this film by scanning every single environment, building a 3D model in Blender and blocking out all of the scenes virtually, One of my favorite examples is, on our first day of shooting, we were filming a scene in a bathroom. After scanning the bathroom [into Blender], we discovered that we angled the camera towards a mirror, we could see the entirety of the space. It was so simple and elegant; I don’t know if anyone in the audience sees it, but for us it was like had found this jewel. There were other things we shot that first night, but that’s the one where I thought, “We got it.”

We should also the mention the narration by Vicky Krieps. Combined with the black and white photography, it lends the film the feeling of a fairy tale. Why did you decide to add narration?

Musteata: It's interesting because narrators have existed in some of the best films of all time, like Barry Lyndon or so many of the Coen brothers’ movies. At the same time, it’s also one of the most controversial things that you can do in filmmaking! There were so many times that our producers were like, “Please take out the narrator.” We fought for it and shot it [for narration]; it was baked in, but not in a way that wasn’t extractable, because it doesn’t give you any expository information. It’s just a tonal thing.

We cut the film twice, once with the voiceover and once without. Even though the film worked [without narration], it pained me to watch the version without the narrator. We hadn't cast Vicky yet; we had been out to her for a very, very long time. Vicky is very slow on email, which she will say herself! [Laughs] Like any great actress, she is focused on the work.

Her husband found our email in her inbox, watched the film and read the script and said, “Vicky, you need to find the time to do this.” So she watched the film, loved it, and immediately said yes. About 24 hours later, we were recording the narration with her. At that point, all the conversations about whether the film should have narration or not were out the door. Our producers were like, ‘Of course there’s a narrator!” [Laughs]

Singh: Vicky is also responsible for the title. We had played around with titles that were a bit more run of the mill. This title is, for us, a synecdoche of the film because on the surface, it's kind of clinical, ugly, and off-putting. But if you think about it, two people exchanging saliva is the most romantic thing. It’s the thing we hope happens in every single romantic comedy! The dual nature of the title is very similar to how we feel about the film itself.

Musteata: Once again, our producers were like, “We don’t know. It sounds great in English, but awful in French.” And then all of our American friends would say, “It sounds awful in English, but great in French!” Everyone was a little bit nervous about it, but Vicky said, “If I saw that title in a festival, I would want to go see it!”

I understand that you’re currently working on a feature length version — can you talk a little bit about what your plans are for how to expand the world?

Musteata: You know, none of this was planned. Alex and I were ready to grab any opportunity to make a film, and when this opportunity to shoot in a luxury department store came about, we pitched this crazy idea and made it much bigger than anyone wanted it to be. I think we were asked to make a five-minute film and we were like, “How about a 30 minute one?” [Laughs]

As the film started circulating and started winning some prizes, we realized that there was this deep interest in the story. A lot of producers started approaching us and asking if we wanted to make this into a feature. There were so many ideas that we had while writing the script that we had put to the side, so the second the idea of a feature film was put into our heads, we started writing.

Singh: In some ways, it’s almost like we’re adapting someone else’s short story. We love this short film, and we want to really explore these three women. We're developing a couple of other projects at the same time for features that are also similarly striking and ridiculous premises but treated very seriously and sincerely. For the characters who inhabit these worlds, these are their everyday lives.

Musteata: So more absurdist stories with a lot of heart coming soon! [Laughs]

What’s one lesson you took away from making this film that you think you’ll apply to future projects?

Musteata: Well, one thing that we learned was that while Alex and I had the exact same film in mind, we sometimes have different solutions for how to arrive there. That’s great to know during the planning phase, because we have time. But on set, you have to move at a clip. There was one moment during the 13-day shoot where we had a disagreement on how to resolve something that wasn’t working. Rather than argue about it on set, we discovered it’s so much faster to just shoot it both ways. In the end, both of our solutions are in the film. Moving forward, we’ll try both ideas out.

Singh: What really works is how the film manages to have a unique and intriguing concept, and yet also have an emotional heart. We understood making this film that we could tell very strange stories that would connect with an audience if we put ourselves in those characters' shoes and didn't look down on them. That's become our North Star as we’re thinking of the projects that we want to make. All of the films we love are those in which there’s a lot of catharsis, and that’s something we hope to infuse all of our own films with.

This article and video are presented by Misia Films.