TIFF 2022 Exclusive: Sophie Kargman Talks Feature Debut Susie Searches

Sophie Kargman may be losing her actual voice when I meet her for our interview at Toronto International Film Festival 2022, but the same can’t be said for her voice as a director. Indeed, Kargman is at the festival with her feature directorial debut Susie Searches, which is making its world premiere at TIFF. “I cried for both,” she says of the film’s in-person screenings that happened in the days leading up to our interview, “which is so embarrassing, but it was really moving. You’re in a black box, editing for a really long time, and then you give birth to this creative baby, and you hope that people will respond to it.”

Starring Kiersey Clemons (returning soon as Iris West in The Flash), Susie Searches is a story about the titular college student whose true-crime obsession has yielded the creation of a podcast with which she solves crimes and other mysteries. Her biggest problem, however, is that nobody is really tuning in. As a result, when the disappearance of social media star Jesse (played by Alex Wolff) rocks the news, Susie attempts to solve the mystery and use the heightened media attention to boost her podcast’s audience. Of course, between classes, a part-time job, and caring for her chronically-ill mother, adding an investigation is the last thing Susie should have on her plate. However, Susie stumbles upon a darker truth as she becomes closer to cracking the case.

Significantly, Susie Searches is an expansion of the 2020 short film of the same name that Kargman directed and co-created with screenwriter William Day Frank. “Our intention for Susie Searches was to go out with the proof-of-concept short and the feature screenplay at the same time,” Kargman says. “The film industry is looking for reasons to say no, especially financiers and producers. They’re putting their money in, and they want to make sure they’re protected.” For Kargman, putting out the short film first — a not uncommon practice for indie filmmakers — was a way to “limit ‘no’ as much as possible,” especially as a first-time feature filmmaker creating a story with a unique tone.

Choosing Not to Star in the Feature & Casting Kiersey Clemons

“I think Kiersey is a tremendous actress. In everything she does, she’s good. Not everyone is good in everything — that’s hard to do — [but] she’s one of those actresses that’s always compelling. I love watching her.” Indeed, when casting for the titular role of Susie Searches, Kargman considered many actresses, but Clemons was the only one she made an offer to. Their first meeting, which happened at the beginning of the pandemic and resulted in a three-and-a-half-hour Zoom call, solidified Kargman’s choice. “It was Kiersey’s emotional dexterity that made me think she had it for Susie.”

What’s interesting is that Kargman actually played Susie in the short film version of Susie Searches. However, after directing her second short Query, which was selected as part of the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival’s LGBTQ+ Category, there was a special moment that inspired Kargman to not star in the feature version. “Before I was directing, I was writing shorts, acting in shorts, and producing them. Susie [the short] was the first thing I had directed, and it was about time: I had done everything else on set, but [directing],” she says. “The point of Query was that I wanted to direct something I [wasn’t starring in] because I loved directing, but I felt slightly bifurcated. […] And it was Query that [gave] me that ‘aha’ moment. It’s not that I don’t want to act anymore, but once I found directing, I was like, this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.”

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Susie Searches has already been garnering favorable reviews — Mashable, for instance, calls it a “darkly funny reckoning” — which speaks to Kargman’s goal of making a movie that “was very topical, something that was a reflection of where we are as a society at this current time.” Furthermore, the film has been drawing comparisons to Only Murders in the Building, specifically in its parody of true crime obsession. More than that, of course, it’s “this quest for validation” that Kargman says is the pulse of Susie Searches. “Insta-celebrity has never been so widely pursued That, to me, is really interesting — this idea of how far does one go to capture an audience?”

Ultimately, with Susie Searches effectively marking Kargman’s introduction to a wider audience, the director hopes viewers will see her unique perspective. “I want people to be like, oh, Kargman is making a movie, it’s going to be a ride, it’s going to be entertaining, and it’s also going to say something.” Between her short films and, now, her feature, she says, “The underlying theme between all of my work is: taking something and flipping it on its head, and changing someone’s perspective on it.”