Take five with Anna Biller

Her first feature, a nod to early-’70s Playboy decadence called Viva, strips Anna Biller down to topless. But the Los Angeles–based performer, 36, won’t be marginalized, least of all by herself: She directs, writes, edits, scores, sews all the costumes, builds the sets, produces and—wouldn’t you know it?—loves to chat a mean streak about woman power.

Your film looks great, nothing like the indie video stuff we usually see. How much did it cost?
A million dollars. Everything we paid for is up on the screen.

I get the feeling you enjoy playing dress-up. Are you kind of a girly girl?
Yeah, that was sort of a goal I had: to find power through girliness. When I was making shorts at CalArts, there was a lot of renewed interest in women’s desire and pleasure, all this feminist whining and dry academic texts. But it didn’t seem like anyone was actually doing it.

And that’s where you came in.
Exactly. Let’s bring dignity back to girliness. Or something beautiful. Of course, the second you do that, everyone just says it’s campy or people call you a drag queen. And I was trying to make the stuff dead serious. The art department absolutely adored it; the film department, not so much.

So you don’t intend Viva as camp?
I never think about camp. Camp is something that’s added to things after the fact, by other people judging. I do like humor, but there are distinctions.

Isn’t it strange, though, to look for female empowerment in the Playboy aesthetic?
You’d think, right? But here’s a genre in which women were central, which is rare. In my film, the difference is the point of view. For example, the boyfriend, Rick, is the desired object, beautiful and unattainable. He takes his shirt off first, not any woman.

You do get around to that, though.
Oh, I have all kinds of naked women. I’m not trying to take away people’s pleasure in watching women.

What’s scarier for you, directing without clothes or directing in a queen-bee costume, as you did at CalArts?
I like to hide. I always thought the scariest thing for me—the ultimate costume—would be to strip down to a bikini and just play a normal girl at the beach. That would be almost punk for me.

Here’s a question that Kubrick often got: Why do you feel the need to do everything yourself?
Mainly so that it can happen at all. One thing that I learned when I delegated stuff is that people weren’t getting the job done. Unbelievable mistakes. Like forgetting to call
the actors.

Do you feel respected as a director?
No, I don’t. [Sighs] One day. There’s so much condescension out there. People treat me like a model everywhere I go. If I wasn’t already playing with that fantasy in the films, I think I’d be quite upset by it.

And next for you?
I’m doing a witchcraft movie, The Love Witch. I do hope to have some sex in it.

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