‘In my experience of writing and filmmaking, a lot comes from the gut’: Elena Oxman on ‘Outerlands’

Cass (Asia Kate Dillon) contains multitudes. Juggling jobs in San Francisco—at once a nanny, a dealer, and a restaurant server—they keep themselves occupied by necessity. They find themselves drawn to coworker Kalli (Louisa Krause), and after a chat in a laundromat one night, they hook up. The next morning, Kalli is gone, but she rings. She’ll be out of town for a while and asks Cass to do her the not inconsiderable favour of looking after her 11-year-old daughter, Ari (Ridley Asha Batemen) until she gets back. In little more than a blink of an eye, Cass agrees.

Cass picks up Ari from her house. As the two lock eyes, we sense a kindredness between them, but they each shy away from it. The days go by, and Cass and Ari warmly, but awkwardly, coexist in Cass’ tiny apartment as they wait for Kalli’s return, Ari preoccupied with a handheld video game system as Cass looks on. In a closet, a worn game cartridge bearing Cass’ old name in marker pen sits tucked away in a long-neglected box.

Portrayed with a meaningful, steely vacancy by nonbinary actor Dillon (Orange is the New Black, Billions), Cass is compellingly clenched, with a past and future that unfurl beyond the bounds of Outerlands. The film’s writer-director, Elena Oxman, is a warm and intuitive new voice in fiction filmmaking with a background in academia and documentary work, now bringing the film for its European premiere at the 2025 BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival just after its world premiere at South by Southwest (SXSW). In this illuminating interview, we sat down with Oxman to discuss the many textures and mirrors of her first fiction feature.

Purple Hour: What people or stories inspired you to make this film? It’s about identity in many different respects, but when you tell a nonbinary story especially, that doesn’t tend to come out of nowhere.

Elena Oxman: Asia Kate Dillon was a big inspiration. I was watching Billions at the time that I was writing this, and I had made a short film, Lit (2014), that was also a lead-up to Outerlands. For that, we ended up casting this actor named D’Lo, who is nonbinary and transitioned afterward. The film ended up having this nonbinary character.

There was a natural progression into the script for Outerlands. As I started to watch Asia—it’s one of those things that I think happens with a lot of writers—you begin to picture a certain actor in the role. Cass is quite different from the character they played on Billions, but there was a certain quality that Asia had.

When nonbinary identity on screen is still so rare, I’m always interested in how filmmakers present nonbinary people on screen and how you expect them to be read by the audience. Your approach is quite casual and matter-of-fact. You could telegraph and signpost that this is a nonbinary person, but you don’t. You just let them be.

That’s true. It’s interesting, because in the initial script that Asia read, there was no pronoun mention at all. One of the things that Asia brought to the script that I thought was great is that they said, “You know, we need to mention it somewhere”. One of their reasons was that there’s a technicality when the industry categorises films. If the character is not named as nonbinary, it actually doesn’t register as that. It was significant when they were on Billions as the first nonbinary character on a network TV show, so I began to work it into the script, but yeah, they just are who they are—they present as they are. I’m glad that we did bring in the pronouns. I think it adds this subtle grace note, and it’s an important part of the script now. But my initial impulse was to be matter-of-fact about it. There’s something about doing that I like.

If you’re a nonbinary spectator watching this film, you see representation in Asia’s character. Then, their character sees themselves in the young kid they temporarily foster. There’s a Russian doll going on, and I find that interesting. I’d love to hear your thoughts on giving that representation their own representation within the diegesis.

Mirroring was definitely in my mind—this idea that we are all, in a way, mirrors for each other. The relation between Cass and Ari in that first moment where they see each other was very intentional. I was thinking a lot about mirroring in that shot/reverse shot. It’s something that goes unsaid, but as a viewer, we immediately get that there’s something that they are seeing in themselves as a child.

But I like what you’re saying too, of linking that to audience and being mirrored, and the whole idea of cinema as mirroring. In my experience of writing and filmmaking, a lot comes from the gut. You’re doing things a lot of the time without necessarily going, “I’m going to create a film with nonbinary representation”. It’s more, “This person—I want to see this person”. Afterwards, especially when you begin to hear the audience and the appreciation, it really sinks in how important it is to follow that gut [feeling]. That’s why I think the diversity of guts that are making movies is really important, because we naturally gravitate toward things that are not what we’re seeing usually.

There are other trans voices in this film. A custom version of Anna Anthropy’s game REDDER is used as the titular game, and there’s a track from Celeste composer Lena Raine. Again, you’re putting trans voices and experiences on screen in this subtle, non-signposted way.

Absolutely. That was very deliberate. It’s wanting it to be a family affair, you know? When I was researching game designers and composers, I was specifically interested in who’s out there in our LGBTQIA+ community, and I happened to find these two amazing artists. That was the case throughout the process—wanting to have this sense of queer family and allies making this film. There’s a sensibility, I think, that does come through that’s not homogenous by any means, but it’s there.

So much trans art in the present moment—I Saw the TV Glow as an obvious example—incorporates screens within screens and engages in dialogue about how our screen entertainment can impact and speak to the formation of our identities. What was the thinking behind the game at the centre of the film, and what does it mean to you?

That’s an interesting question. It came from my own childhood. I played a lot of NES [the Nintendo Entertainment System]. For me, a lot of that was about nostalgia and the way in which these games from an earlier time period are simpler. In some ways, the simpler they are, the more moving I find them. There’s something about this little person in the desolate landscape, this astronaut. Anna had that game already, REDDER, and she designed the end sequence based on the script. When I saw REDDER, it really captured something. It reminded me of games that I used to play. I think it’s a portal to the past. That’s the function it serves in the film. I wasn’t so much thinking about issues of identity as I was about what is going to be the tunnel that Cass goes through to connect them back to their past, and then what is that going to evoke in us as viewers. That simplicity is echoed in Lena’s music, which has this simple but haunting feeling to it.

Who voices young Cass?

That’s Ridley Asha Batemen, who plays Ari, and there’s your mirroring idea.

So much of this film is about communication: our attempts at it and our failures to connect with each other. I love how every character in the film manages to communicate with one person but completely fails to communicate with another.

I understood Cass to be someone who is a person of few words, who is feeling a lot that is not getting spoken. The narrative trajectory is them going from having this well of feeling bubbling up under the surface to it eventually coming out. It was a challenge, I have to say, and a credit to Asia that they could do this, to convey that this character has a lot going on underneath but isn’t necessarily speaking it. A lot comes out between the lines in their communications. The same with Ari played by Ridley, and a credit to her amazing talent as well, that she is able to communicate a lot with a look. You understand that these are people who are saying “I’m okay”, but they’re not. One of the mirrors between them is this stoic exterior. You immediately get the sense that these characters both have certain protective walls up that are 100% necessary for them to get through their lives. But you also begin to get the sense that those walls are going to come down.

Tell me about the choral score of the film. I love how this heightened soundtrack accompanies moments of ecstasy and of agony for your characters.

I grew up singing in a church choir, and I’ve always loved sacred music. It’s an interesting thing, being queer and feeling connected to that environment. There’s a reclaiming aspect that feels important to me. For this particular story, there was something about the combination of the sacred and the profane—of the everyday gritty cityscape, someone trying to make a living, combined with this very ethereal, transcendent spiritual music. It casts this journey, which I ultimately understand as a kind of spiritual journey, as a journey where they’re going inward and connecting to an aspect of themselves that they haven’t before. It’s an understated, subtle story, but having this sort of transcendent music felt right to me.

I also loved the idea of combining the Hildegard [von Bingen medieval lithurgical] music with the video game and electronic music—and the way that those interact. There’s something transcendent about video game music and club music. I’ve always found a resonance. We use a Daft Punk song at the end. Whenever I listen to Daft Punk or club music, I’m reminded of sacred music in a way. Hildegard has had a bit of a renaissance in the past ten years. We had a beautiful experience recording these songs in a church with these amazing singers based out of San Francisco called Vajra Voices. There are moments in making a film that are sort of magical, and that was one of them.

What did you learn about yourself, your characters, and the identities and communities that you’ve represented through making the film?

One aspect of Cass that I relate to in my own journey is a tendency that I used to have of being a bit closed off, a “lone wolf”. Filmmaking is a beautiful place for collaboration—everything we do is always interconnected with other people. This lone wolf thing is an illusion. I could feel both a desire to connect with others and a greater ease of doing so developing throughout this process. In film, you have to work with others, and it’s why I love working in it. It challenges me and it enhances me. I think there’s a great capacity for empathy in the queer community. I wonder if that comes from the kind of struggles that one goes through, whether as a young person or continuing into adulthood. There’s this other layer of challenge of being a human, and you’re up against some things that make you understand pain, and other people’s pain. I found that this is a story about that: about empathy, about connection, about being there for oneself, and the way that community—Lea DeLaria’s character, for instance—is there for Cass.

What do you hope that your audiences take away from this film?

I want people to have a personal experience with it—that they see something of their own experience there, and that it helps for it to be made concrete and shareable in this way. Film can make us feel less alone in our experience. I think that’s what it is, no specific thing. I just hope that there’s something that touches them, that they recognise.