“It Was a Process of Experience Meets Intuition Meets Dancing with the Unknown”: Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet on Their DOC NYC-Debuting Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other

Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet’s Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other is as breathtakingly understated as its title is arresting. The doc, which picked up a Special Mention: DOX:AWARD when it world-premiered at CPH:DOX last March, stars the celebrated and prolific photographer Joel Meyerowitz (a two-time Guggenheim Fellow and NEA and NEH awards recipient with 50-plus books and over 350 museum and gallery exhibitions to his credit) and his less famous partner of 30 years, the British artist-musician-novelist Maggie Barrett. It’s also an up close and personal (literally — the filmmaker couple lived with their protagonists during production) encounter with the highs and lows of a long-term relationship, staged in a manner more reminiscent of a theater piece. For now that Joel, in his mid-eighties, is forced to become caregiver to his 75-year old wife after she breaks her femur, the pithy phrase “in sickness and in health” is put to the test. What unspools over the next 100 minutes is a painfully raw and refreshingly honest reckoning with both a bumpy past and an uncertain future — and in Maggie’s case, thwarted ambition as a result of decades of living in the shadow of a creative giant. Until, that is, a talented duo enter with a camera and smartly shine a spotlight on the unsung heroine at the heart of this forever love affair. Just prior to the film’s DOC NYC (Metropolis Competition) premiere Filmmaker reached out to the British co-directing couple, both acclaimed photographers in their own right, to learn all about the bold and auspicious nonfiction debut.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.