Q&A With the Creator of “Oedifish”

By Kaelin Viera

Photo courtesy of Milo Durrance.

Milo Durrance is a cinema and television studies freshman with big plans. While you probably don’t recognize the name, you may have seen his posters around campus. There, his project “Oedifish: A Movie” is described simply: “It’s Oedipus…but with fish costumes!”

Thanks to Durrance’s efforts fundraising and assembling a team, the short film premiered Oct. 11 at the Failed Film Festival in Brooklyn and Oct. 16 at a public screening on campus.

The set of “Oedifish.” Photo courtesy of Milo Durrance.

 This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How did you get your start in film?

A: Well, my dad is a documentary filmmaker. He raised me and my siblings on a lot of very old classic films, like Hitchcock and screwball comedies and also some 80s movies. So that's the first part. The second part is when I was 14, I became really sick, and film became this thing that I could do while I was in bed, and it wouldn't be physically taxing for me. I just had this drive to, like, become an expert.

Q: And what about actually making films? How did you get your start in that?

A: I think it just came like a natural progression. There's this art center in Brooklyn called BRIC, which is kind of a filmmaking resource center. So, during the years when I was homeschooled, I did some courses at BRIC to get certified to use their cameras. I started making my first project just after I started to be less sick. It was kind of like a meditation on my illness and friendship. I never finished it, but it was a way of reconnecting with some of my friends who I had been unable to be around just because I was so ill for so many years.

Q: Who is your biggest inspiration in film?

A: Honestly, the first person that comes to mind is Frank Henenlotter. He directed a trilogy of these great horror movies: “Basket Case,” “Brain Damage,” and “Frankenhooker.” He spent his childhood at these grimy theaters trying to watch the most obscure movies he could find, and he made movies for very little money. Nick Zedd is another person. I honestly don't like his movies very much. I just think his creative spirit and trying to make something even if it doesn't look great [is] very inspiring for me. It feels like something that's achievable, you know; it doesn't feel like something that's out of reach, like a Hollywood movie.

Q: So, why SUNY Purchase?

A: It was my top choice. I think the classes offered for my major, cinema studies, were the most interesting version of this major that I found in a school in New York State. I initially wanted to do the film BFA, but I decided I don't want to go into film production as a career. I'm much more interested in writing about movies, though I do also obviously like making them on my own time.

Q: How are you finding the program so far? Is it what you expected?

A: I would say mostly, yeah. I wasn’t expecting to only have one class for my major, once a week. I mean it's Introduction to Cinema Studies, and because I've already read so many books, I kind of know a lot of these basic concepts, but it's kind of interesting to still be taught them in a more formal way.

Q: Has anything that you've learned in class so far influenced your current project, “Oedifish”?

A: Honestly, not really, but I do have a lot of friends in the film BFA who have helped me with the film, and they're kind of bringing their more specific, technical knowledge to the movie, which is something that's kind of hard to learn by yourself. Basically, the whole film BFA has watched it, even if they're not directly working on it, because they think it's really amusing.

Q: Let's talk about “Oedifish.” Tell me a little bit about your inspiration for this project.

A: I'm in a Greek philosophy class right now, so we were reading Antigone, which is the sequel to Oedipus Rex. So, I kind of had this Oedipus stuff on my mind, and then I was talking to one of my friends. He was talking about how back home he had made these fish masks for a kind of video art project, and I wanted to do something with masks because in the Greek plays, they would perform with these huge masks on. I was like, I feel like we could figure out something really cool with this.

Q: What changes are you making to the original story?

A: My version is told pretty much chronologically. I'm just hitting the major plot beats, you know, kill his father, marry his mother. It's a silent film as well. I watched Pasolini’s “Oedipus Rex” movie. I think the structure is very similar to his movie, obviously a lot shorter. Another famous part of the movie, which I'm not including, is Jocasta hanging herself. I felt like, one, that'd be a difficult special effect to do. And two, maybe like, not within the tone of the fishiness of it. And then [Oedipus] tears out his eyes. I think we're gonna use googly eyes.

Q: Talk to me about the tone of the short film, then. Are you leaning more into the comedic aspects of it?

A: There’s inherent silliness to it, but I’m not setting out to make a parody film. I'm just setting out to do a different interpretation on a very well-known story.

Q: Is there any chance you're gonna do an Antigone with fish people?

A: If I can come up with the pun, maybe.

Q: What have the challenges been so far?

A: My request to get a camera was declined, and then the sound stage was booked this week 'cause I didn’t ask soon enough. So, I'm filming in someone's dorm, which their roommates were not very happy about. It's only two more days, but I feel bad.

Q: Overall, this seems like a very large undertaking, especially for a first-semester freshman. How are you managing it?

A: I've been a bit scattered. I still deal with chronic fatigue, so it's unfortunate timing that I'm having it worse right now. If I didn't have that problem, I'd be doing fine with my classes but because I do and I'm also doing the movie, I feel like it's harder. But, I mean, it’s a short. It's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of the semester, so I believe in my ability to turn things around.

Q: Could you elaborate a little bit more about the film festival you're submitting this to?

A: It’s Prospect Heights Art Club’s yearly film festival. [It] started in 2022. I didn’t participate that year, but I have in all the other years. It's really grown into like a pretty big thing. It’s become a place [where] you realize that you can make art whoever you are, and you don’t need a lot of money. You get 30 days to make a movie. It can be about anything you want, and they screen it. Last year, my film didn't get a great slot in the lineup. But I'm hoping “Oedifish” will maybe get some accolades. This is the most effort I've put into one of [my entries].

Q: What do you hope to achieve with “Oedifish”?

A: The main thing I want out of it [is to] become more involved in the school community, which I definitely have. I honestly haven't stayed in contact with the other two crews I worked on for the two other movies I've done for this, but I think there are some people I will stay in contact with after making this movie. Having people be so passionate about my silly concept is just very, very cool.