In making the follow-up to her hit debut feature Werewolf, Canadian filmmaker Ashley McKenzie says she used a gonzo style of casting that felt “scary” but also offered more freedom and authenticity.

Queens of the Qing Dynasty, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 15, was shot on Cape Breton Island, N.S., and pays homage to the people, cultures, and ideas that have migrated to the region in the past five years, McKenzie tells Playback Daily.

Written, directed, and produced by McKenzie — along with producers Nelson MacDonald and Britt Kerr — the film brought the three back to the island where they all grew up. It was produced by McKenzie’s prodco Hi-Vis Films (formerly grassfire films), with the assistance of the Nova Scotia Film & Television Production Incentive Fund; the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture, and Heritage; the Canada Film or Video Production Tax Credit (CPTC); and CBC Films.

McKenzie tells Playback the film is the product of Telefilm Canada’s now-retired Fast Track program, through the lower-budget tier (defined as productions with budgets under $2.5 million) made in the Crown corporation’s Feature Film Fund, for which McKenzie was eligible through her participation in Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program with Werewolf, which was a microbudget project.

CBC joined Queens of the Qing Dynasty months before production with a pre-sale licence agreement, says McKenzie.

Nova Scotia-set Werewolf, about a pair of methadone users, earned critical kudos when it premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival and won the $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award at the 2018 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.

Like Werewolf, Queens of the Qing Dynasty, McKenzie uses the sites, sounds and day-to-day lives of the people of Cape Breton to tell the harrowing story of a budding relationship between two unlikely characters: a neurodiverse teen named Star (played by Sarah Walker; pictured right), and a genderqueer international student from Shanghai named An (played by Ziyin Zheng; pictured right).

Filming started on Jan. 2, 2020 and took 32 days, but the producers say the film was a five-year undertaking with two years of scriptwriting, extensive location and talent scouting, one year of cutting, and months of post-production.

“It was a sort of homecoming for us,” says Kerr, adding that much of the 15-person crew also worked on Werewolf.

Cape Breton Regional Hospital, Glace Bay Hospital and New Waterford Consolidated Hospital, along with other restaurants, motels and homes around Cape Breton are featured in the story, says Kerr, adding that the doctors, nurses and motel staff were real people, playing themselves in the film.

The producer cast the project through a mix of the rich ties she and McKenzie have in the community, posters at Cape Breton University, and even a “mom-group” on Facebook to find newborn babies for a scene.

“This model [of using non-actors and real sites] can be scary, but I think it adds a certain quality to the film, and allowed us more freedom to articulate a filmmaking process that feels authentic to the script and the characters, rather than importing a production model from a big city-centre like Toronto and trying to make it work here,” says McKenzie.

McKenzie and Kerr wore many hats: McKenzie was writer, co-producer, director and editor. Kerr was co-producing and sharing accounting, production management and assistant-direction tasks with Nelson MacDonald.

Filming on-site presents challenges, particularly in places like hospitals that can’t be shut down, and Kerr says there were times where the public announcements in the hospital would blare out in the middle of a scene.

Kerr says their unique access allowed for eerie footage of a real endoscopy and permission to shoot in one of the hospital’s neonatal intensive care units.

As for the future of the film, McKenzie would like to see it have a theatrical life, noting “it’s an important part of why we make films—to communally experience them together.” She says they haven’t made any decisions yet regarding distribution or sales, noting they’re looking for the right collaborators for the film in that regard. McKenzie is handling all festivals and sales requests until then through Hi-Vis Films.

McKenzie adds that more distributors have been taking alternative art films, like Queens of the Qing Dynasty, and finding them wider audiences. She’s hoping youth markets and young-adult markets will connect with the characters and find it refreshing to see queer storytelling. 

“It’s exciting to see that there’s a lot of interest in the LGBTQ2S+ film community,” says McKenzie.

The producers say there’s already a plan for the next big festival premiere but they can’t divulge more.

“The journey’s just beginning for the film,” says Kerr. “The full festival run is ahead of us. There’s a real market for this type of film, and there’s something to be said for the power of representation and how far this could travel.”