You Won't Be Alone writer and director Goran Stolevski chats about the compassionate humanity between his new supernatural thriller.
Writer and director Goran Stolevski makes his feature film debut with You Won't Be Alone, an eerie masterpiece that follows in the footsteps of recent folk horror tales such as Midsommar and The Witch. The story begins in a small mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, where a seemingly immortal witch curses a child to transform into a supernatural being like herself.
Unlike the common conception of witches, who cast spells and brew potions, the mysterious Maria (Anamaria Marinca, The Old Guard) grants young Nevena (played in her first iteration by Sara Klimoska) the power to transform into anyone else through a particularly gruesome method. Maria takes her captive's voice in the process of anointing her, and Nevena is left voiceless as she seeks to understand humanity through the various people whose bodies she inhabits.
Stolevski spoke to Screen Rant about the myths he drew from in shaping the tale of Old Maid Maria, and the common ground he found in both her pain and Nevena's.
You Won't Be Alone is such a fascinating mix of mythology and horror, and your take on witches felt very unique. What pieces of mythology or what aspects did you really want to incorporate into the story of Old Maid Maria?
Goran Stolevski: Initially, I was doing a lot of research in folklore from that particular part of the world, specifically around witches and stories about women. But most of those stories were not inspiring, they were very much about what a woman's place is and how she finds it - and not in a way that even allowed them to do it in the first place.
I kind of felt like I needed to invent my own mythology a lot with it. Essentially, pretty much every time a new person came on board the cast crew - because they arrived in stages - my approach would be to say, "I know it's a film about witches, but don't think about horror. Just don't think about that for now." It was literally imagining if a folktale or a legend or a myth or a fairy tale was based on a true story, because someone saw something and then was struggling to grasp it, and then it just kept being embellished.
We're trying to make a documentary-style film about the true story rather than show a version that came from it. And that even happens within the film: the story of Nevena's own life and Maria's then become embellished and told to other children. That's the approach I kind of took.
I love how we get to see Nevena go through various lives, but at the same time she is still the same character. What would you say is the essence of her trajectory as a character?
Goran Stolevski: To me, the film is about two people: Nevena and Maria. It's almost about the same thing, just different takes on it. They both want more out of life; more than is possible.
They grow up and start in pretty repressive, horrific settings, but they're curious. They want to live as full a life as possible, they keep trying and trying, and it keeps exploding in their face. And they undergo cycles of abuse and suffering, as a lot of people do -especially in that period and that place.
With Nevena, there's the sense that after all of that, she still retains a sense of wanting to connect with people; a yearning to connect and hoping that she will. It doesn't abandon her. For Maria, it's completely snuffed out and destroyed - which for me is a tragedy, and I think her feelings are valid.
I'm somewhere in between. Those two people are like my brain split in half, so I don't think one is more or less valid than the other, and I feel very connected to both of them throughout. Essentially for Nevena, it is a strength. I've never been impressed by physical strength - maybe because it was never something I could possess. It's mental strength and resilience that makes my chest thump. I think that kind of mental strength is one of her defining features for me.
