Despite too often times jarring evidence to the contrary, love is all around. This is the reassuring strand running through the new rom-com “Tell Me I Love You”. I spoke with Writer/Director Fiona Mackenzie about her charmingly quirky film.

“告诉我我爱你”是一部标准的浪漫喜剧，以一种非常规的方式向我们展示。这种方法通常不喜欢这种类型，对我有吸引力。什么灵感和影响使您创建这个故事？

很高兴您喜欢它！答案的第一部分是我居住在纽约市，是一名电视记者，涵盖了著名乐队，以及即将到来的音乐家。我的许多年轻音乐家朋友生活/工作/约会的方式非常鼓舞人心，非常自由。他们的工作时间很小，一次只能一起旅行几个月，只有彼此挂在上面。在公共汽车或面包车上，有时是出国，当然可以远离舒适区。我以为这个世界是一个为舞台奠定基础的有趣场所非传统的浪漫喜剧。

The second part of the answer is, that for most of us, our original families are the source of many of our built-in impressions and attitude. I felt it would be interesting to disrupt some of the baked in, preconceived perceptions of a what makes a family unit, and present a truly new kind of modern tribe, that audiences could hopefully connect with. Who ends up with who combined with over reaching families have been appealing to audiences since Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”! So this was fun to play with, all the angles on who knows the truth, who’s dating who, and what’s really going on with this crazy trio living in Malibu.

Love manifests through a variety of bonds in “Tell Me I Love You”. Friendship, marriage, child-parent, heterosexual, homosexual-all are relationships explored here. This most emotional dynamic of our human condition seems to have been your primary driving force. As both Writer and Director, what did you personally want to share with us about love?

我真的想表明人们可以一起生活，彼此相爱，彼此充当家庭，但在非传统设置中。有很多不同的家庭版本，我认为它们都是有效的，都需要在阳光下的时间。例如，我与一个非常传统的家庭一起长大，但我们所有的亲戚都住在海外。因此，我们一直在一起做事，并与我们的家人和其他家人朋友一起度过了家庭假期。

就爱情动力而言，我还想证明，与艾莉（Ally）和本（Ben）一样，这种关系曾经浪漫而又被破坏了，最终可能会变成更深的东西。他们的大学“浪漫”现在被打碎了，现在变成了更有意义的东西，现在他们已经年纪大了，而且危在旦夕。我也对人类创造“巢”的愿望着迷。从我们留下自己的原始巢（又称大学，生活或工作）的那一刻起，人们就会感觉到生活可能会通过重建巢穴（避风港）来保护自己免受世界挑战的境地的挑战。对于许多具有非常规关系的人来说，复制他们作为孩子的确切结构不是目标，而是反映它的目标。因此，对于本，梅兰妮和艾莉这个小家族来说受外部影响。对于他们来说，这是他们的主要单位。

Independent film is in an enormously exciting place now. So many talented filmmakers such as yourself are giving us well made and compelling movies outside of the mega studio mainstream. What are your feelings about the current state of the indie film landscape? What do you believe lies ahead?

I totally agree with you. It’s a very exciting time for storytellers in all genres. Especially as audiences have been showing up to support increasingly more unusual complex characters and expanded forms of storytelling than ever. Besides Tell Me I Love You, which is which is more of a light, fun summer romp, I’m also in development on a female driven Interpol espionage series, an LGBT fashion thriller, and a French revolutionary drama with a female lead-all very different. It’s exciting to see how the expanded global demand for content is taking us all into unconventional worlds we’ve rarely seen and have barely scratched the surface on. It’s not only extraordinary time for me as a writer and director, but also as part of the audience. I’m watching films and series from the U.S. and also from around the world every week. The stories that are being produced are just inspiring in every way.

I invite you to enjoy all of my film reviews as“The Quick Flick Critic”, continually updated athttps://thequickflickcritic.blogspot.com/