Jenna Cato Bass and David Horler are the director and the producer of Room 0, definitely one of the most challenging and curious of the projects selected for the first workshop of the first edition of Biennale College – Cinema. Defined as a “social cinema game”, Room 0 is an innovative cinematographic experience in which the audience has an active part. We caught up with them and had a little chat about the experience of the workshop, Room 0 and their future.

Jenna and David told us that “it was an absolute privilege to be able to have the concentrated time to focus on what is not only a complex and demanding project, but one which has a lot of aspects to which we are both new to. So being able to work things through, and have unadulterated space to think and process was wonderful and immensely helpful”. Added to this, both of them agree about the environment of the first workshop that, “surrounded by stimulating filmmakers and advisors, was very conducive to brainstorming and bouncing our ideas off of everyone involved. It was a great pleasure and we learned a great deal”.

Director and producer are not working just on Room 0, but have a slate of projects they’re currently developing: “We both work on multiple projects at once, which is as exciting as it is complicated! Our other projects are more regular narratives (relatively speaking), so the constant immersion in storytelling, and the practice in doing this, feeds into all the projects and makes us better at what we do”.

Beyond Room 0, Jenna and David are working together again on two feature films: Tok Tokkie e Flatland. Jenna is also developing “another project set in Australia as well as <3thelu<3, a no-budget feature intending to shoot in June this year”. David is producing a short film, The Flea, “from emerging writer/director William Nicholson and a feature adaptation of There are No Heroes, a dystopian sci-fi short from Kyle Stevenson and Donald Leitch. I’m providing facilitation support for Kenyan co-production Walls of Leila and have recently begun developing two animal-centric documentaries for the South African market”.