Jennifer Esposito has spent more than two decades in front of the camera, with memorable appearances in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam and the Best Picture winner, Crash; now, she has moved behind the camera for her directorial debut, the mafia drama Fresh Kills.
"I've been working on this for a lifetime," the Brooklyn-born Esposito says. "I grew up around the mafia, and the violence and rage that I saw from many of the young women was something that stayed with me. I just chalked it up to their families being in the mafia. But going out into the world on my own, and being told who and what I was, and what I was capable of and put in a box, I realized that the anger that I saw in those young women was also my own. I realized it had nothing to do with the mafia. Fresh Kills is really about finding a voice in a world that tells you not to have one."
Growing up in New York City, Esposito first discovered the transformative power of cinema as a young girl watching classics like Grease and West Side Story. "When I got older and was going to college, I wanted to study film because I wanted to tell stories," she remembers. "I didn't see any representation of female writer-directors back then, so I didn’t really know, but I knew enough that I wanted to study film."
Esposito ended up graduating from The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and entered the industry as an actor, happy to contribute to the stories that other people were telling. With Fresh Kills, she is finally telling her own. (In addition to directing Fresh Kills, Esposito also wrote the film, is one of the producers, and appears in a supporting role.) "That was magic. I feel like I finally fell into where I'm supposed to be."
Below, Esposito shares with A.frame five of the films that have most inspired her.
Directed by: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins | Written by: Ernest Lehman
When I was a kid and I was plopped in front of a TV, I would watch West Side Story and Grease. They were huge inspirations; I knew I wanted to do "that" — whatever "that" was that I was seeing. I wanted to do "that." I wanted to jump into the TV and be with those people.
Directed by: Randal Kleiser | Written by: Bronté Woodard
These are the films that ignited my love for film, and the worlds created in these films were just something so incredibly special for me.
Directed by: Ridley Scott | Written by: Callie Khouri
This film was huge for me, because it was the first time I saw females in a different way. No one was doing that back then, and they're still not completely doing that. To see those two women go off the cliff? I still don’t know if I fully understood back then what I was watching, but I knew it had an impact on me. Now, to understand how incredible it was for them to have shown that scene and allowed that ending, to say that these women were not going back to the life they were pushed into or had, that they’d rather go off the cliff — it's one of my favorites.
Written and Directed by: Barry Jenkins
Moonlight is an enormous inspiration for me. The structure of the film is very much like my own for Fresh Kills, and also, I just thought it was one of the most beautiful films I've seen in a long time. It was really pivotal in helping me with my film, because I read every single thing Barry Jenkins did — every little script note, camera he used, why he shot certain things certain ways. It was a really pivotal movie for me.
Written and Directed by: Charlotte Wells
Aftersun came out around the time when I was starting to submit my film to festivals, and I remember watching it for the first time. It was more of a slow burn film. And, when it hit the end, it was just so beautiful, because you could see that it was such a personal story. It was such an inspiration to me, because it did so well in the festival circuit. And then, went on to do better after, picking up awards. It was just such an inspiration; it was also a female writer-director, and it was her first film too. It was just such a beautiful film that unfolded so slowly but brilliantly.
