Road of Bygones: a Chat with Astrid Ovalles

Road of Bygones, the award-winning, kinky, dark, comedic, feature-length drama written and directed by out Venezuelan-born actress Astrid Ovalles, is now available to rent and/or purchase on Amazon, and the film’s website, RoadOfBygones.com.

Embarking on a road trip to retrieve the ashes of a figure from the past, three women hope to find closure at their destination and are confronted with a series of self-destructive, sometimes hilarious, events that threaten to destroy all harmony between them. Ovalles gives insight on a taboo topic that is typically exaggerated and portrayed with ignorance and challenges the status quo not just for women, but lesbians and Latinas.

She has broken down stereotypes and certainly epitomizes the definition of “doing it on your own terms” and succeeding at it. OUT FRONT had the opportunity to chat more with Ovalles about Road of Bygones. In addition to writing and directing, she also stars in the film alongside Oriana Oppice and Sarah J. Lucey.

Hi, Astrid! Thank you so much for chatting with me about your new film, Road of Bygones. Without giving too much away, can you tell us more about it?
It’s a road trip movie. It’s a dark comedy about three women who take off to retrieve the ashes of a mother who died. The three women have sort of an interesting dynamic. Two of them are in a D/s relationship, and for people who don’t know, D/s stands for domination and submission. So, one couple is D/s, and then the other woman is the sister of one of the two women.

They are estranged, and you will find out why when you watch the movie. So, you will know why that is, find out more about the D/s couple, the sister, of course, has some questions about that, and it is sort of a fun, light-hearted way of including taboo topics about that community that we don’t get to see very often. Also, it’s a fun movie. It’s a movie made for lesbians by lesbians. We’re all gay, so it is kind of a novelty when it comes to actual lesbian movies. You know, having actual lesbians play lesbians. It’s not necessary, but it is nice to have it once in a while. 

How did you come up with the concept, and why did you want to make this film?
I wanted to make this film for two reasons. My main thing was the dynamic between the two sisters. I wanted to do something that was a little different than what we are used to seeing when it comes to relationships with family. I wanted it to mainly be a family drama, dark comedy. What was interesting was that my best friend Oriana Oppice who plays Sam in the movie, we have an interesting connection. We sort of have this connection where we’re friends, we’re family, sometimes it comes across a little more than that, and I wanted to play with the chemistry. So, I wrote it so that would play around with that.

The reason I made the lesbian couple D/s was because I am in a D/s relationship with my wife. Four years ago, when we finished our first film, we came out as D/s, and we got a lot of backlash about that, especially from other lesbians saying that we were sick; we needed help and so on. I thought, what’s going on? I thought we didn’t do this to people. I thought we were a community who fought against that kind of thing. So, I thought, I can just sit on this and do nothing or put this in my art.

So, I wrote D/s elements into it because I thought it was very unfair. I mean, you spend your entire life fighting for equality and for other people to be accepted for who they are. Then, your own community treats you in a way where they tell you that you’re sick and it’s not normal. I felt it needed to be shown. I do believe that visibility in the media is important. I think the more you see things and the more you see things in a good light because a lot of times, D/s is portrayed in an unhealthy way. A lot of times, people are shown coming from an abusive family, using D/s to deal with certain issues and torments.

While there is nothing wrong with that, that’s absolutely not always the case. I think the majority of the time, people are just who they are, and people like what they like. I think that we need to talk about consent and boundaries. The more you talk about that, the more people are going to be accepting of different things. Of course, not everybody’s going to like everything, but I do think it’s worth it to know the possibilities of how people can have relationships and how a couple can communicate. So, that’s why I made the movie with all of those elements.

In addition to effectively breaking the stigma when it comes to kink relationships and taboo topics, you also challenged the status quo not just for women, but lesbians and Latinas. Do you believe lesbians and Latinas do not receive as much screen time as others?
No, we don’t. It is very difficult for us to get funding, and that’s the main problem. So, it’s not that we don’t want to do it. There are a lot of lesbians and Latin lesbians who want to create content and have a tremendous amount of talent, but we just don’t get the money. It’s very difficult. The only reason I can do this is because I have a full-time job and my wife has a job. So, we work, and we have kind of a schedule that allows us to make movies in between work. We work all the time. I can’t imagine if I had any other job; I don’t know if I would be able to do it.

I think that it begins with money. Unfortunately, it is sad that art has to be so tied into money, but the more I grow up, the more I learned that business and art are not that separate. They are pretty close together. We have to educate young women and minorities to be a little bit more business-savvy. It’s good to encourage people to be artists, but I also think it is safe for us to learn to become financially independent and to thrive financially because then we can really affect the change that we want to affect. Once we help ourselves, then we are free to help other people. That is sort of like the ripple effect. I think a lot of artists sort of look the other way when it comes to money, or they become sort of in this tornado of art, ideas and illusion. It’s a beautiful thing, but the reality of the situation is that without money, nobody’s ever going to see your art.

For the LGBTQ community, it is very important for us to be aware of where the money’s going, where it’s coming from, and how we can get more of it. The more we have it, the more we can show lesbians, the more we can show Latin and black women, everything. We just need more money. I don’t think we see enough lesbians on TV. I know that a lot of lesbians get upset because they don’t feel seen. There’s diversity within our community; not all of us are the same, and that’s also why I like showing the essence.

Just because we’re gay, bi, transgender, that doesn’t mean we are all going to have the same likes. We are diverse. We’re not the minority we felt we were. There are a lot more of us, and we’re so different. So, I think that the stories that we have to tell are immense and vast, and we have so much talent. We have so much to say and so much to tell. I would love to see a lot more of it. 

You play Bobbi in the film. Can you tell us more about her?
I actually dislike her quite a bit [laughs]. I like flawed characters; I think they are a lot more interesting. I don’t care for characters who are good, perfect or immaculate. I like my characters to get into trouble and Bobbie’s immature, so obviously I needed her to fail because I wanted people to see how a submissive would respond and should respond and the power that lies within the submissive in the D/s dynamic.

She has a lot of things that are unresolved with her and her sister, and she does say in the movie that this consumes her.  The relationship with her sister consumes her, and because of that, she threatens to destroy everything that she has built with her partner. So, to me, she’s quite unlikable. I like that she makes mistakes because I like when people make mistakes. We all do. My thing with Bobbi was to make her seem sort of like she feels as though she’s in control, and she feels like she’s impenetrable, but she has this huge vulnerability when it comes to her sister. It impacts everything else in her life.

What did you do to prepare yourself for this role?
It’s a little bit difficult for me because I would do so many things at once, and when I’m on set, I’m doing four to five jobs. Oriana and I act a lot together, so we discussed our dynamic quite a bit. There were certain key scenes that we had a huge conversations about. I don’t want to give too much away, but I think it’s very helpful putting yourself in your character’s shoes. I’ve been acting since I was like 11 or 12, so to me, it’s just sort of being there.

I’ve acted with Oriana before, so it’s very easy for me to do a scene with her because she is a very talented person, and our process is kind of the same. We prepared together. The one trick they teach you is, if you want to be a better actor, act with somebody who’s much better than you. Then you’ll rise to that level. So, I feel that Oriana is amazing, and I think with her, it’s very easy for me because she’s the better one. I try not to rehearse too much because I think that in film, you want to get it on the first three takes or so. After that, things become a little stale. Most of it is just understanding the intent of the scene, what we call the heart of the story. 

You have become an iconic figure within the LGBTQ community with a commitment to amplify and celebrate minority voices and stories. Why is it so important to celebrate these voices and stories?
We live here! We’re part of it! We have a rich and vibrant culture. Our culture is so beautiful to me. We have this culture of acceptance, love and affection. I feel at home when I’m with the LGBTQ community. Not just because we’re both homosexual or bisexual or whatever. Our culture, you know, it’s the films we watch, the art we like, the music we listen to, things that we wear, the places we go. The more free we become, the more equality we attain. The more we’re free to be ourselves.

I get a lot of emails from people who have come out to their families because of my films, or who have finally realized that they were gay because of my films. It’s important for me to help other people to my art. When you’re an artist, the biggest compliment you can have is for an audience to respond to your art in a way that’s sort of extreme, whether it’s good or bad. To have an impact with your audiences, that’s the feeling you want to get when you’re an artist.

It’s important to me in a sense that it’s selfish. I like the way it feels to help people, but also, I’m happy that it’s bringing about change to individuals, little things here and there. When we made our first movie, Camp Belvidere, a short film, I used to get a ton of emails from lesbians who had come out and related to the film immensely. That just meant the world to me because I set out to make a film because I love film making. I had no idea that I was going to affect people’s live. The feeling is addicting, and I want to keep doing that. 

Have you always had a passion for this type of work? All kinds of art?
Yes. I grew up as a painter; I’ve been painting since I was a child. When I discovered film making, I saw that I could create music and stories with moving images and act. I wanted to be a villain and wanted to be a monster, but I also wanted to be a hero. I love everything about film. I’ve always had a passion for this.

When I was in high school, my best friend and I used to make little movies. We had, like, a little web series that we made for fun. So, I think it was always in me, and then when I moved to New York, I would audition for things as an actress and saw how the sets were run. Eventually, you kind of say to yourself, you know, ‘I can try this.’ I tried it and loved it and just kept doing it.

I read that Road of Bygones had a successful time while traveling the film festival circuit. It was received well by audiences?
Yes. I’m not a very big fan of festivals because I think they’re a waste of time, but I do love connecting with my audience one-on-one. So, it’s been very well received in that sense. I’m very active on social media, and I love to know what people are thinking about the film. I love to talk to everyone who watches it. People who sort of follow our work, as I was expecting, there were some lesbians who said that they did not feel comfortable promoting the film because it was anti-feminist and portraying a woman as a submissive, even though it was consensual, was a bad message to send to people.

So, we did get that, which made me happy because then I said, ‘Oh OK, then that means that the movie is needed.’ In a way, I was expecting it to be difficult to promote it because I know people in our community are still very close-minded when it comes to sex and sensuality, sexuality and the varieties of it. It was received very well by our existing fan base. I think that we’ve expanded our fan base. We have a lot of D/s people who enjoyed the movie, a lot of people who are very open about sex-positive work and stuff like that who really enjoyed how we portrayed it.

I am very pleased with how the movie is doing so far. That’s why I’m very excited about the Amazon release because it’s going to reach a much bigger audience. I like the fact that people are going to be able to watch it on their television, tablet or whatever. I’m happy that it’s doing well. I mean, you get used to it being 50/50. There’s always somebody who’s going to like something, and there’s always somebody who’s not going to like something. That’s just it. I listened to both sides, and I always try to improve and keep in mind what the audience wants and needs, what they want to see next and stuff like that. But I’m lucky. I’m happy with the response. 

Out of everything, what do you hope people take away the most from this film?
Well, I just hope that people enjoy the movie. It’s a dark comedy, and it’s funny. I love to hear people’s laugh. We screened the movie three to four times now, and being with the audience is very refreshing because I love to hear them laugh. I have this dry sense of humor that I’ve always wanted to put in a movie. So, I just want people to have a good time watching the movie. I also like that there’s a bit of a shock value to it. I don’t like being preachy, but I think sometimes, we have to do things to improve the world however we can. The movie, of course, does have a message that it wants to put out there. We have to accept people who are different from us. 

Can we expect a sequel?
No, no, no [laughs]. This is very much a closed movie. 

What’s next? Any other upcoming projects we should be on the lookout for?
We are working on another movie, and it’s going to be totally different from this. My goal as an artist is to be innovative, I would like to do something that’s completely outsirade the box. I would like to do something that people go out of the theaters saying, ‘You know, I’ve never seen anything like that. That was cool.’ So, yeah, I’m writing a feature film with a friend, and it’s sort of a post-modern, apocalyptic drama.