SHEILA VAND
two sides of the
COIN
FROM BATHING IN MILK FOR ART
to shooting a modern feminist vampire flick
ACTRESS SHEILA VAND PLAYS BOTH SIDES OF THE CREATIVE COIN
WORDS BY JAY DE BELEN
PHOTOGRAPHY WES KLAIN
STYLING JONATHAN LAWTHORNE
MAKEUP ASHLEIGH LOUER
HAIR JASON SMALL
Who would have thought that one of the most stylish films of
2014 would be a postmodern supernatural romance thriller
dubbed as “the first Iranian vampire Western?” Watching A
Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, directed by Iranian-American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour and executively produced
by Elijah Wood (yes, that Bilbo Baggins), is like watching a
new favourite movie unfold before your eyes. It’s fairly easy to
see the film be shown during those cool, underground Halloween parties – it’s got all the elements of a cult classic. Shot
in all black and white, and spoken in all Farsi, the story follows
a lonesome vampire, played to a tee by Sheila Vand. There are
undercurrents of spaghetti Westerns, goth comics and maybe
even a little bit of a nod to modern feminism; how could this
film not boldly represent where independent film is today?