Liv McNeil breaks out in behind-the-scenes work with new documentary, The Making of Priscilla

This young Canadian filmmaker shares the raw connection that she and many young females share with Priscilla Presley  

By Nicole Soroka

In the fall of 2022, Priscilla Presley’s story was brought to life on set in Toronto, reimagining the days that the teenage girl lived out with the king of rock ‘n’ roll. However, the stories of young Presley were not the only presence of a young girl on set.

In June 2020, Etobicoke School of the Arts student Liv McNeil posted her short film on YouTube, Numb, highlighting a handful of emotions that high school students faced during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown and online learning. At this time, McNeil was only in the ninth grade and it did not take long for her film to reach a wide audience, quickly proving how much young talent there is to be discovered in Canada. 

McNeil’s immense talent gained the attention of many prominent people in the industry, including Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley, who later cast McNeil in her 2022 Oscar-winning film, Women Talking. Shortly thereafter, McNeil was once again noticed by a leading female force in the industry, Sofia Coppola, who asked the young filmmaker to join her on her latest project, Priscilla. Coppola approached McNeil about shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary of the film, an opportunity that would continue to open doors for McNeil. 

During the live Q&A at the TIFF Next Wave Canadian premiere of her documentary, The Making of Priscilla, McNeil explained how Coppola brought her onto the project.

“John Buchan is friends with Sofia Coppola and he brought her to the TIFF screening of Women Talking,” said McNeil. “Then Sarah Polley introduces me on stage as Liv McNeil, a young filmmaker, and Sofia goes, ‘Who's that? I'm looking for a young girl to make a behind-the-scenes documentary.’ And then I'm meeting Jacob Elordi.”

The nearly 30-minute film invites viewers onto the set of Priscilla and features interviews with Coppola, Priscilla Presley and lead actress, Cailee Spaeny. They share insights into how Priscilla came to be, how Presley herself felt about the project and the labour of love that went into making the film. 

Additionally, McNeil also connects her own experiences to those of Presley. During the premiere, McNeil explained that she had little to no vision of the documentary’s focus going into her first day on set. She had originally planned to simply narrate what occurred during their 30-day shoot and dig deeper into the film’s evolution. However, seeing the story of Presley’s life unfold in front of her proved that their life experiences may be more intertwined than she realized, creating the perfect storyline for her film. 

“I'm a young girl shooting the behind-the-scenes of a story about another young girl,” said McNeil. “Obviously, very different lives, but there's something to be said about that.”

McNeil continued to elaborate on Spaeny’s thoughts about her title role and regardless of how elaborate her life became, Presley experienced what many women still go through to this day. 

“No matter how big or small the story, whatever Priscilla went through is what a lot of women go through,” said McNeil. “You leave your parents, you grow up, you get married, you have a child, it becomes really human. And you see a girl there instead of an object.”

Expanding on her experience working with Coppola, McNeil shared that the director was with her every step of the way. 

“Every so often she would check in and she would often say, ‘get in there, get in there, you're here for a reason, I want you to be here,’” said McNeil. “Coming from Sofia Coppola I was like, ‘okay, okay, okay, sure, I'll go in, I’ll go in, I'll do whatever you need me to do.’ Then I’d get right in the way and I’d step on people's toes. And it was difficult to do, but I knew I had to do it.”

However, Coppola wasn’t the only person on set who had McNeil’s back. She revealed that her father, who is also a filmmaker, accompanied her during the shooting process. While Coppola, who knows a thing or two about having a father in the industry, urged McNeil to use her own ideas and instincts, McNeil was grateful to have her father by her side.

“I think I would have died on set if it wasn't for him,” said McNeil. “He really really did save my life multiple times.”

McNeil also spoke to CanCulture in an interview and shared some behind-the-scenes secrets that weren’t included in the documentary. One of the key memories that stood out to McNeil occurred at the end of filming and included one adorable dog. 

“Jacob [Elordi’s] dog just took a dump on set,” said McNeil. “There was this piece of fake grass and it was at the end and we were popping champagne and the dog [got] loose and the dog [was] running around and having a good time. She was running around and she just like squats, sits on the fake grass and [Elordi] was like ‘don’t look, don’t look.’” 

McNeil also expanded on how having previous acting experience has helped shape her attitude behind the camera. She explained that she has more empathy for what the actors experience during a shoot, such as when they’re worried or in need of a break, and how she is able to form a meaningful connection with the actors on her projects. 

“All the actors that I work with on my short films are already my friends or they become my friends because I think that's really important to become close with the people that you're intimate with and vulnerable with and making art with,” said McNeil. 

The Making of Priscilla proved just how talented McNeil truly is, at such a young age nonetheless. The questions McNeil asked the cast and crew throughout her on-set interviews revealed her curiosity and eagerness to learn. The documentary also highlighted her tenacity and willingness to push outside her comfort zone. 

The connections that McNeil made between Presley’s young life and her own personal experiences are nothing short of genius. By taking a public figure and highlighting the parts of her life that many women may be able to relate to on some scale is humanizing and a fresh perspective to take in the film industry. I appreciated McNeil’s ability to take what I found to be the best scenes in Priscilla and dive into the emotional aspects the cast went through while filming them, as well as showcase some of the conversations that Coppola and Presley shared prior to/during the filmmaking process. 

As McNeil continues her studies in film at Concordia University, audiences will have to wait and see what is next for this inspiring Canadian filmmaker. As a first year university student, McNeil has already had the opportunity to work on a film set for one of the most anticipated films from 2023. Even more, this filmmaker is bringing a great deal of pride to Canada by showcasing how much this country has to offer to the film industry. 

 The Making of Priscilla is currently available for viewing through Elevation Pictures on Youtube and in the United States through the A24 app. 

The future of deepfakes isn’t memes – it’s nonconsensual porn: A review of Another Body

Filmmakers Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn want to reclaim the online space for women in their new documentary on the misuse of deepfake technology.

By Sarah Grishpul

Imagine you received a message from a friend one day with a link to a porn site to which you discover that there are a bunch of pornographic videos with your face on them.

That is how directors Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn’s documentary, Another Body, starts. In the film, we follow Taylor, a young college student whose life turns upside down after discovering someone has posted deepfake pornography, using her face, online.

Deepfakes are artificially generated footage created by running a large collection of images through AI software. 

While many people may have encountered deepfakes through memes or silly videos of Nicolas Cage on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body, at least 96 per cent of this technology has been utilized for pornographic content. The majority of these victims are nonconsenting women.

The documentary is a slow-burn thriller that guides the viewer through a situation every modern young woman fears. There is a constant sense of unease and dread as we see Taylor close off from the world while more deepfake videos of her are posted. It’s heartbreaking to witness this youthful, carefree girl slowly become undone by such an act of hate.

Throughout this documentary, we follow Taylor’s journey as she works relentlessly to seek justice for this egregious invasion of privacy. However, as the film hammers home, most countries don’t have proper online harassment laws surrounding this new technology.

Even in Canada, there are no criminal deepfake laws in place. It is also difficult to punish the creators of pornographic deepfakes as the perpetrator is often hiding behind an anonymous online identity.

The documentary is shot similarly to most found-footage films (picture Aneesh Chaganty’s 2018 film Searching), with many scenes shot from Taylor’s phone or laptop while capturing her reactions in vlogs, Zoom meetings or through social media sites and forums. 

When initially developing the idea for this documentary, Compton and Hamlyn wanted to bring awareness to this growing issue that not many are aware of. In an interview with CanCulture, the pair discussed the ethics behind approaching Taylor and sharing her story without invading her space.

“By allowing her to self-record her story, she's the one who decides when the camera turns on and when the camera turns off, she decides when she wants to speak and when she doesn't and by sort of doing that, we provide her with control over how her story is told,” said Hamlyn. “It kind of makes her collaborator in the process more so than the junior typical documentary subject.”

Aside from giving Taylor control over her narrative, Hamlyn also mentioned that they wanted to reclaim the online platforms that had stripped so many women of their agency.

“We want to celebrate these online forms of communication and documentation, and so by recreating that in the style of the film, we're trying to put forward quite how powerful that can be as a mechanism of using your voice,” said Hamlyn.

The pair also utilized this AI tool to demonstrate how powerful this technology can be while also protecting Taylor’s identity, as it is revealed in the film that the face we’ve been staring at isn’t her actual face — but rather, a deepfake of another actress (Ava Breuer).

According to the filmmakers, deepfake technology isn’t inherently problematic. However, it becomes an issue when not used responsibly.

“They don't understand that this technology, when used to recreate a realistic-looking video, can be pretty much seamless,” said Compton. “And so by being able to use the technology in the film not just to protect our subjects, we also really can persuade the audience and clarify how terrifying the technology can be when misused.”

Compton and Hamlyn hope that this documentary will help bring awareness to this ongoing issue while destigmatizing the illusion of these online predators and addressing this kind of abuse and misogyny in our communities.

“The Internet is the most important public forum in human history, in my opinion, and the right answer is not to withdraw from it just to protect yourself from this,” said Hamlyn. “We need to find a way of making it safe for women to freely participate in online spaces.”

The documentary is part of their campaign #MyImageMyChoice meant to amplify the stories of survivors and advocate for stronger laws surrounding deepfake abuse. Compton says they started a petition to block these sites from promoting image abuse and email templates that people can send to political representatives.

“What we've really witnessed in Taylor's story is that if you persevere and keep investigating and reach out to people and find community, things can really shift,” said Compton.

“So, I hope that people sense the glimmer of opportunity and hope in that.”

Another Body will be playing at the Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema before streaming on CBC Gem on November 22nd.

Fitriya: Muslim On and Off The Court redefines what it means to be a Muslim woman in sports

This documentary traces Fitriya Mohamed's journey as she reshapes the Toronto sports landscape and advocates for representation of Muslim women in the world of basketball.

By: Nageen Riaz

Fitriya: Muslim On and Off The Court doesn’t have a release date yet, but more information will be released soon on the film's Instagram account (Courtesy of Jake Y Ian)

Fitriya: Muslim On and Off the Court is a short documentary that delves into the incredible journey of Fitriya Mohamed, a Muslim female athlete and the driving force behind the Muslim Women’s Summer Basketball League (MWSBL). The film shines a light on the complexities that come with trying to find a safe space for Muslim women athletes and why such a space is so vital to Toronto’s landscape. Even when facing cultural barriers and endless challenges, Fitriya continues to fight for representation and aims to redefine what Muslim women can do, both on and off the court. 

“The one change I hope this documentary brings is a narrative shift for Muslim women and for people to understand there are so many other complex characteristics to us,” said co-director and writer, Selina McCallum. 

McCallum first pitched the idea for the documentary as part of an alumni callout for the OYA Black Arts Coalition. She had been a part of their emerging filmmakers' program in 2019 and saw this callout as an opportunity to create a documentary surrounding Muslim athletes. 

“I reached out to Fitriya and asked her if it would be okay if I pitched MWSBL as a story and she was totally on board,” said McCallum. “From there Safa really fought for my film so I really appreciate both of them for being so passionate from day one and advocates all the way through.”

Safa Ali Mudei was originally the producer but later also took on the role of co-director and writer alongside McCallum. “Working with Selina was so inspiring because it just made me feel like I was at home. It made me feel centred and aligned so that I can adhere to my religion as a Muslim woman while also creating the art that I wish to see,” said Mudei.

The documentary had a lot of support, both from the internal team as well as from OYA, but getting it to the big screen was no easy feat. With pre-production spanning from October to December of 2022 and post-production from January to April this year, the film was completed over seven months ago. Currently, it has seen widespread success and positive feedback, with festival screenings in both Canada and Australia and future screenings in the works.

“What made the response so wonderful and important was the feedback we got from our Muslim peers, especially Muslim women, knowing that they can see somebody else that may look like them and may even live the same experience as them on the screen,” said Mudei. “It’s important to recognize that they are as powerful as they know they are and they're able to express that in a bigger light.”

The mission was always to empower Muslim women, but finding the space and resources to do that wasn’t always easy. The documentary shines a light on the stories of Melissa McLetchie and Nazie Shakur, two women who embraced Islam despite the challenges and islamophobia they faced. They both share how important MWSBL is in fighting back against these barriers and how the league allows Muslim women to truly feel like they belong.

“I think it’s very important for us to be a source of positive representation in basketball as Muslim women,” said Melissa McLetchi in the documentary. “To challenge the stereotypes, challenge the misconceptions and just to show people that yes we are Muslim, we are women, we wear hijab but we do other things too.”

Four women, one sitting and three standing around her, all smile at the camera

Left to Right - Nazie Shakur, Fitriya Mohamed, Melissa P. McLetchie and Selina McCallum (Rahma Alim)

Fitriya Mohamed first launched MWSBL in the summer of 2020, but due to COVID-19, its first season was postponed to 2022. Since then, the Toronto-based non-profit basketball league has seen great success in its community and has united women every summer through the sport.

“I’m doing the work today because basketball has done so much for me and I want to give back. MWSBL has been my way of doing that and growing the sport within my community,” said Mohamed. “What we really wanna do is shed a light on Muslim women doing amazing things and them taking up space. Those are some of the things we do with MWSBL and I just wanted to make sure that it's portrayed that way in the documentary.”

“Fitriya recognized that she wasn't able to play safely in a spot while also adhering to Islam,” said Mudei. “And so what she did was create her own space where she could also welcome other youth and that has been such a light to see with the amount of impact it had on so many people.”

Despite Fitriya’s unwavering determination, MWSBL is still yet to find a permanent home as establishing a safe women-only space is proving to be a struggle. “Finding a space like that isn’t easy and so the mission is to make the league sustainable in that way so we have a set location every year,” she said.

Not only is MWSBL fighting for a permanent spot in Toronto, but also a spot for Muslim women in competitive athletics globally. 

“I know a lot of people experience external factors, like not being able to play wearing their hijab at the highest level of competition,” said Mohamed. “But we’re doing the work to ensure to our community and our girls, at least in Canada, that doesn't happen.”

The documentary redefines what it means to be a Muslim woman by highlighting how every individual has their own story and capabilities. “It was the passion and grit behind Fitriya and her story that inspired this documentary. Just being around her and seeing how she really wants to change the narrative for Muslim women in sports and overall,” said McCallum. “I just knew it was a strong story, a powerful one that would touch many people, Muslim and non-Muslim.”

“The message to take away from this film is definitely don’t let people change who you are, just let them accept you for how you come,” said Mudei.

Fitriya: Muslim On and Off the Court will be available to watch online, look out for more details on their Instagram account.