Chicago Film Festival 2018 Exclusive: Producer-Writer-Actress McKenzie Chinn Talks About Her Film ‘Olympia’Posted by Wilson Morales
October 20, 2018
Recently played at the Chicago International Film Festival after making its World Premiere at the 2018 LA Film Festival was Olympia, a Chicago-based feature film directed by Gregory Dixon and written by McKenzie Chinn about what it means to become an adult in the modern world.
Produced by Lucy Manda, Elliot Lonsdale, and Sarah Sharp, the cast also includes Charles Andrew Gardner, Ericka Ratcliff, LaNisa Renee Frederick, Penelope Walker, & Sadieh Rifai..
McKenzie Chinn stars as a struggling artist, navigating work and romance in the Windy City. When her roommate moves out, it leaves her to cover rent on an apartment she can’t afford. Also, her career as an artist has stalled before ever taking off, and her mother is sick in the hospital. Now, her oldest friend, and her boyfriend too, are starting new careers that threaten to take them far away. On the cusp of 30, everything around Olympia is changing. Now she has to decide if she’s going to change with it, or get left behind.
For McKenzie Chinn, the Washington, DC native gets to showcase a film where she’s not only front and center on the screen, but is wearing multiple hats behind the screen as well. Blackfilm.com caught up with Chinn as the film is in the midst of festival runs.
How did the story come about?
McKenzie Chinn: I wrote this film shortly after turning 30 and I remember waiting up until that time, I felt so much turmoil because I was thinking, “This feels like an important time for me to figure out what is means to be an adult and I have to actually start picking a direction and finding success in my life, which I hadn’t felt. Then I realized that so many people in my generation were feeling the same thing. For some reason, 30 felt like that turing point where we needed to get our lives together somehow. I also realized that my generation is also playing by a completely different set of rules than other generations before us had. My parents before me got married and had one career for decades and bought a house and had kids. All of these things that we are expected to do as we make our way through life. All of those roles didn’t feel like they were in play in the same way for my generation anymore. Well, if those aren’t the rules anymore, then what are the rules? How do we define what it means to become an adult and move forward in our lives. So I wrote this film to try to answer that question for myself.
How did you and Gregory Dixon connect?
McKenzie Chinn: Gregory and I met when we were both in graduate school at DePaul University in Chicago. I was an acting student at the theater school and he was a film student at the film school and we had a class that overlapped. We worked on the very first assignment together and immediately I knew that his style and his sensibility as a director was something that I thought was really, really special. I remember thinking that when we screened the project in class, “I’m going to find a way to work with him again. I don’t know when, but I will find a way.” I just buried that seed in my mind. Then when I realized I would have the opportunity to produce the film, Greg was one of the first people I called. I sent him the script and said, “Can you read this? Can you give me feedback? There’s a chance we can make this and if that’s the case, do you want to do this with me?” He was onboard immediately and we started working together on tightening the script and having conversations on what we wanted the film to feel like and coming up with references. It was a great collaboration from the moment I reached out.
With as many hats that you wore on this film, producer, writer and actress, which one was more to your liking?
McKenzie Chinn: I think they are all exhilarating in their own unique way. I’ve been an actor for more than half my life at this point. I’m very comfortable taking other people’s words and infusing them with my own world view and sensibilities and perspective and breathing life to something that someone else has written. I have always been a writer. Honestly, I thought that was the first thing I was going to do. I used to write stories and plays and make my sister do the illustration. I came back to that love after I finished after acting school. It was really exciting to marry those two sensibilities, to tell a story and have the agency as a person to be in charge of my own story and how I want it to be perceived. Then, to actually put my body into the story that I crafted, was incredibly empowering and exhilarating in a way that I hadn’t ever experienced. I’m grateful to have that experience; to work as a producer and sit down with the team and make sure that we are all on the same page and working cohesively on the same vision. It was unlike anything I had experienced before. As actors, we’re responsible for such a small part of how an overall story plays out and reaches an audience.
There is a big window open right for female directors, producers, screenwriters and actors. Do you believe you were able to get this film made because of that?
McKenzie Chinn: I certainly hope so. I think that we have been telling these stories for a long time. I think women have been writing stories and pitching them. Black people and black women have been writing stories and it’s just now that these doors are opening. I think more of those doors will continue to open as we have people of color and women in positions to make decisions. I’m so excited and hopeful for the moment where those are doors are open and we’re opening them for one another. Not only do I benefit from that but we all benefit from that. White people benefit from that. Men benefit from all of us sharing these stories so that we can all advance and have a greater understanding of all of our varied and rich experience in this world.
Having appeared at the LA Film Festival and now the Chicago Film Festival, is there a chance we’ll see Olympia in theaters sooner than later?
McKenzie Chinn: I absolutely believe so. We’re so excited to play at these festivals and meet other filmmakers and make these connections and show the film to the festival audiences. We’re definitely working with our team to secure a theatrical run so that we can share with an even wider audience. We all believe in the joy and power of this love story, this Chicago centered story; and the opportunity to share it with a larger audiences and to allow people to connect with the story we have written and also showcase Chicago in that way. That was a big part in our agenda.
