SBIFF 2024: Filmmaker Basil Mironer Talks Dandelions, How a Strange Facebook Message Led to This Unexpected Journey, and More

Basil Mironer is an award-winning filmmaker and one of the most exciting voices of his generation. Based in Austin, Texas, Basil received his MFA in Film & Television Production from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and has created compelling stories that are character-driven and explore themes of identity and self-acceptance.

His latest film, Dandelions, is his debut documentary, which is making its world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. After receiving a mysterious Facebook message, filmmaker Basil Mironer uncovers a hidden family secret that leads him to embark on a journey from Los Angeles to Moscow. His exploration into the past unveils an emotional revelation, forcing him to grapple with the presence of a man claiming to be his father. As he delves into the past, doubt surfaces, confronting him with the potential fallout of unearthing the truth. As Basil navigates the delicate balance between uncovering what happened and protecting family ties, the pressure mounts until it boils over. In this unexpected adventure, Basil bridges identity gaps and endeavors to heal familial wounds by seeking his own truth.

Pop Culturalist had the pleasure of speaking with Basil about Dandelions.

PC: This journey all started when you received that strange Facebook message from two teens claiming to be your siblings. You held onto that secret for eight years before starting this documentary. How did you know now is the right time to start that exploration? How soon after did you realize you wanted to have your brother Ben on this journey with you?
Basil: After receiving that message, I was shocked. I was like, “Is this real? I can’t believe this is happening.” Living with that idea, it took a lot of time for me to process that and understand it. I spent some of that time actually hiding from it and being like, “Okay, this is real, but I’m going to put it away in the back of my head.” Part of that decision was because Ben was so much younger than me. I had concerns about bringing this up. I was concerned about how this would affect Ben and how he saw our family. So I held onto it. By the time Ben turned twenty, we were really close friends, and we were collaborators on different projects.

Ben was in college at the time. I showed up to Ben’s dorm, and I was like, “I have this story to tell you. I think we can make it into a movie. I want you to be a part of it. It’s going to require me and you to be on camera.” He was like, “Why? What is it? What’s going on?” I was like, “Listen, I’ll call you one day, you show up to my place, and I’ll tell you.” That’s how the movie starts.

The plunge to make it into a film was that I had lived with this for so long that the curiosity got the better of me. I removed that thing from the back of my head, and I was like I need to dive into this because I need to figure out how this affects my personal identity. That’s what prompted it.

PC: That bond that you have with Ben is incredible to see on screen. You really take audiences on this emotional rollercoaster with you. It very much feels like they’re along the ride with you. Was that immersion something that you were mindful of during the filming process? Can you talk a bit about the filming and editing process to create that intimacy on screen and the ways in which you captured those emotions?
Basil: It was inherent in the journey that if I was going to do this and we were going to film it, the most important thing was that authenticity because there wasn’t a script. There was no idea. There was a rough structure that we were going to be here in Los Angeles, talk about it, go to Russia, and then we were going to come back and have a conversation with my parents. That’s all we knew.

We chose to film it with a very small crew where it was a group of five of us. It was me, my brother, my girlfriend Flavia [Watson] at the time, and my really close friends Mitch [Arens] and Miriam [Louise Arens]. We were just friends making a little movie. We had small DSLR cameras so that we didn’t freak people out when we would pull it out so that we were able to take the camera and audiences on that journey wherever we went.

At the end of the day, it’s an emotional ride, and it’s my life. There was no hiding. I just needed to experience this. In a way, the filmmaking part really took a backseat eventually. I was just there being present for every moment. That intimacy is a byproduct of really close friends that were filming something that wasn’t a movie but was my life. That’s vulnerable and exciting all at the same time.

PC: There’s so much trust that you need in documentary filmmaking, and it was so interesting that your father in Russia talked about the fact that it takes time to build those relationships and that trust, but you both still have so many vulnerable conversations on camera. How were you able to build that bond so quickly? How much of that was a byproduct of the fact that you were equally as vulnerable and open about your own perspectives?
Basil: I was lucky. I felt lucky to be received by a member of my family that I’d never met before with open arms. Of course, he’s my biological dad. But you don’t know who you’re going to meet on the other side, so I’m grateful that the whole side of the family who hadn’t seen me in 29 years showed up. Of course, it’s an exciting moment, and there’s a lot to catch up on. But those 29 years inherently means that there’s this wall where we’re different. We don’t know if we’re going to connect or not. All of those conversations are me and him trying to find ways to connect with each other. Being transparent and honest in those moments is all we can do. There was no other choice. It’s one of my truths to be honest. That integrity is an important value for me as a person. So that came naturally for me in the film and in my interactions. That moment that you talk about in the film, it’s one of the moments that when I watch it still, it’s really hard for me to process. It makes me ask a lot of questions for myself now that I’m a father.

PC: This is also such an interesting study on the cultural and generational nuances, which is really highlighted in the conversations and interactions that you have with your siblings in Russia and also that conversation that you have with your parents at the end of the film. Were there any surprising revelations that you made through those interactions?
Basil: [laughs] You definitely think you know a culture or you have expectations about how somebody might react. There’s a scene in the middle of the film where I’m meeting my sister for the first time. Ben is ruminating on the different roles of a “father figure,” and that was really emotional for me. It made me cry at my sister’s. She was like, “This is making me really shy. We’re not like this in Russia.” That’s the Eastern European mentality. That’s something that my parents still have. It’s that heritage. In a way, it’s also generational. The younger generation is much more open to talking about it and putting it on social media. There’s a level of there are some things that we don’t talk about. Some things need to stay private. Sometimes I think that surprises me to this day because you expect everybody else to be like you in a way that they approach a situation. It’s important to remember that everybody has the right to approach a situation in a certain way or make a decision that’s private and that they don’t need to share it. So that was a surprise. It was a surprise for me in the film because at the end of the film, I expected the conversation with my parents to go one way and it goes the complete opposite way. It’s kind of a twist in the film. It’s just a reminder that you got to release expectations of other people.

PC: You also edited this film, and that’s the phase in the filmmaking process where things begin to take shape. Were there themes that were less prevalent during the filming process that emerged during the edit? What was it like getting to watch the entire journey again from a different lens both personally and professionally?
Basil: It was really tough. It took us seven years to complete the film because we shot 350 hours worth of footage. When you watch the film, it feels like it takes place in eight days, but really it’s a month-long duration that we filmed. Because of that, there were a lot of different versions of this film. At one point, we actually had an episodic version. It was six, 30-minute episodes, and you get to see everybody’s idiosyncrasies a lot more; Ben, Flavia, even Mitch and Miriam. They ended up a lot more on camera. At the end of the day, we were sitting in the editing room and whittling this thing down and trying to figure out the best way to present it. The tricky thing was the climax scene, for example, you’re watching it, you’re editing it, and we’re editing for weeks and weeks, and the whole time you’re crying. You’re watching it and you’re crying and saying, “Can we make this cut here? Stop real quick. Let’s make a cut here.” It’s weird because I’m reliving the whole thing as I’m editing it. Because of that, I got to process everything. It helped. It actually helped. Ben, at one point, calls me and he’s like, “You’ve been editing this for years and years, but mom and dad haven’t seen it. They need to see this.” That experience was so healing for them and for me to screen the film for them. But yeah, the editing of the film was tough because getting to an hour and a half version really made us look at what are the most important through lines in the film and how do we tell that.

It really focused on anything to do with my identity. So if I’m trying to fill a gap in my identity that was related to my biological dad, that would make it in the film, and anything about the journey of meeting those family members. There were a lot of things that got left on the editing floor that were really fun.

At one point, I had to do oral surgery on Ben because he got something stuck in his mouth, and we were in the middle of the Russian wilderness, essentially. I had to get him drunk and operate on his mouth with a needle. There were so many scenes that were super fun, but had nothing to do with the through line of the film.

To keep up with Basil, follow him on Instagram. Learn more about Dandelions here.