The works of singular filmmaker Amanda Kramer live in the realm of theatricality, pastiche, and aesthetic artificiality, where Brechtian remove commingles with dry wit. Her films exist in fully realized worlds that evoke the slightly surreal feeling of a half-remembered dream or the memories of a time long past. Her latest film, “By Design,” in which Juliette Lewis swaps bodies with a chair, is another prime example of Kramer’s undeniably unique cinematic vision.
After studying theatre at Emerson College in Boston, Kramer relocated to Los Angeles, where she worked as a vintage clothing buyer, worked at an underground record label, and created house music. Her debut short film “Bark” premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2016. A few more shorts followed, and then Kramer made her feature-film debut with “Paris Window,” which explores the destructive relationship between two siblings.
In 2018, her breakthrough feature “Ladyworld,” a surreal, feminine twist on “Lord of the Flies,” premiered at Fantastic Fest before screening at the BFI London Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. In 2022, she released two feature films that debuted at the International Film Festival Rotterdam; “Please Baby Please,” a pastiche of 1950s heteronormativity and greaser culture, which again featured a standout ensemble cast that included Andrea Riseborough, Harry Melling, Cole Escola, and Demi Moore, and “Give Me Pity!,” a psychedelic musical comedy about an ’80s television star (Sophie von Haselberg) whose dream of her own TV special does not go as planned. A low-budget, DIY affair, Kramer made the latter film in just five days during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“By Design,” which premiered as part of the NEXT competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, stars Juliette Lewis as a woman named Camille who, while window shopping with her friends (Samantha Mathis and Robin Tunney) after brunch, falls in love with an exquisite wooden chair. Not able to pay for the chair that day, she comes back to the shop the next day with all of her savings, only to discover that a woman named Marta (Alisa Tores), moved by Camille’s desire for the chair, purchased it as a parting gift for her recent ex, a pianist named Olivier (Mamoudou Athie).
Overcome by the loss of the chair, Camille’s spirit leaves her body and enters the perfectly crafted object. While Camille’s body is rendered a limp, soulless vessel, Olivier and the chair form their own unique bond, throwing both of their lives into turmoil.
For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus column, RogerEbert.com spoke to Kramer over Zoom about her unique aesthetic approach to cinema, finding the right chair for Juliette Lewis, the moral core of body swap films, and the films by women that inspire her.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You’ve listed so many influences for this film, but it’s not full of homages. It’s more like a blender. Do you use a mood board?
I actually have this problem every time I start a new film, because mood boards and visual decks are expected. And what can you put in a mood board or visual deck but other people’s work? So you must be cultivating images from films, paintings, television shows, and fine art that you love. But there’s such a lack in that because what if I want to make something no one has ever seen? What if I want something that is iconoclastic in a whole new way?
So I work very hard with a lot of people, my production designer, my cinematographer, my editor, and a graphic designer sometimes, to find images that are unexpected, to find references that are unexpected, or they’re like in the caves of our mind that we haven’t pulled forth. Because no one needs to look at a visual deck with a photo from “The Shining” in it.
It’s unnecessary. Why not see an image we’ve never seen, or an image we’ve seen but don’t remember, or an image that we’ve seen many times in a new way? So I generally try to work that way, because my whole life has been in film, television, theatre, and fine art. How do you even run through the Rolodex of your mind? It’s pinging across my brain constantly. In those circumstances, I know the colors and sets from certain movies, the camera movement from a movie, the lens, and it all becomes, like you said, a blender. So there’s no single, pinpointable theft, but I am a thief.
The film has a certain wisp of a mid-’80s feeling; you’ve said you were inspired by early Donna Karan and mall layouts.
I have this problem with period settings, in that a specific year doesn’t feel right to me. I really believe in a pastiche of older eras, because I’m not that interested in contemporary life. I don’t want people with cell phones, and I don’t want scrolling and text bubbles, but I never want to be like, “It’s the 1980s” or “It’s the 1950s.” I want it to feel like it’s a different decade, but on another planet, or a memory. The memory that we have of the 1980s is not what the 1980s were like. The memory we have of the 1950s is not what it was like. So I think of it as that hypnagogic space of your remembering of a time. Which also has to do with the movies and images you see from that time. So, yeah, it’s a very hallucinatory memory of the 1980s.
How did you land on this specific Baumann chair? How did it come into your life?
My production designer, Grace Surnow, is a genius. I don’t feel strange throwing that word out. When you begin talking with your production designer, the conversation will include fabrication. And do you want to hire someone to create something that no one has ever seen before? What is the timeline? What is the budget? In a very practical way, making our own chair was not off the table, but so many chairs exist.
Chairs are somewhat infamously loved by people who obsess over architecture and interior design. I know Brad Pitt collects chairs, so if he does, obviously that’s very meaningful. But there were so many chairs to look at and so many great sellers of antique chairs, so we went whole hog into a research sinkhole. Should it be upholstered? Should it be wood? Should it be plastic? Should it have more of an irreverent quality, a funny chair? Should it be something that feels very elegant? Should it be something broken? These are all questions that you have to ask.
Needless to say, you want a chair that you feel like this woman would look at and find to be beautiful? With beauty, you also have to think about what it is from person to person. So we found a chair that had absolutely no energy. It was this sort of vibeless, beautiful, simple, wooden chair, like so simple you would walk past it, but if you didn’t walk past it, you would recognize it for such elegance. It’s plain, but to be so beautiful and plain is, I think, a desire.
For many women, it’s difficult to do. That’s why most of us are so made up. Yes, we don’t trust the plainness. We don’t trust the simplicity. And I think we saw the chair and we both said, this could be it, because so many other chairs were so funky and stylish, and some of them were really gorgeous, but in that very, very expensive, high taste way, and we just weren’t quite sure that suited the character.
Was it character first, then chair, and then Juliette Lewis, or character, Juliette Lewis, chair?
Character, Juliette Lewis, chair.
Were you thinking of Juliette Lewis as the character when you said, this is her chair?
Not Juliette Lewis the woman, but Juliette Lewis as Camille.
Juliette Lewis, the woman, would be a funky chair for sure.
Yeah. Also, she is a collector and believes in synergies, which would have to connect with her immediately. She’s a very gut-based, instinctual woman, which is why she’s such a brilliant actress. With her playing this character, and the way we discussed how she would embody Camille, we thought she would do something almost nebbish, maybe that’s not quite the word, but that she would do something so on its face insecure, attempting at security. Already secure as well, but in a wholly specific way. With all of these qualities, we thought she would like the unfussiness of this particular wooden chair.
Was there ever a time in your actual life where you saw a piece of furniture and you connected like that?
I love buying furniture. I love it, and it stresses me out zero. I always want to find the best furniture. I wish I had a home the size of an old Bed Bath and Beyond warehouse I could just fill with furniture, but I don’t. I have a small Spanish-style bungalow, so I have to be very specific when choosing furniture. So I try to love it because I know I’ll sit on it or look at it every day.
But more so, my thing is when I’m driving through the streets, and I see a discarded piece of furniture. I have often taken pieces home. I especially did that in college. Even if I had to carry it on my back. This lamp has to come with me. The shabbier something is, the more heart-wrenching it is, and the more I want to take it. What does that say about me? We won’t get into it, but that’s kind of broken. I love the history of things. I love the vibration coming off of something. That’s happened a bunch of times.
Your films often feature chameleon-like ensemble casts in which interesting character actors truly become the characters. As a 90s kid, I loved seeing Samantha Mathis and Robin Tunney in this film. How do you pick and choose who becomes who in your films?
We were very lucky to have them. I am the same. I worshiped them as a young woman, just worshiped. And thank you for noticing that, and I’m so appreciative of that. I think that one of the hardest things about working in the film industry is that you have to be guided by these lists of names. You have to be guided by IMDb and the starmeter. Agents and producers, financiers, distributors, they’re all guiding you toward the biggest, the brightest, and that’s in finger quotes, because it changes. It’s such a foolish pursuit. It really is.
When you’re a filmmaker, you have to know who is good at acting. That sounds so goofy, but it’s true, and that is not always the celebrity who is the most famous person; that is not always the person being hooked onto you by the powers that be. A lot of times, you have to initiate your own taste, your memory, the actors that you see and love, and you make a little list. Oh, wouldn’t it be so wonderful to work with Samantha Mathis? You think that, and you hold on to it, and you pray you have a role for her one day.
Personally, I love actors. My favorite part of the job is working with them. So casting is prickly. I don’t like being told I need so-and-so to get such-and-such an amount of money. It’s very heartbreaking. So when I am lucky enough to work with producers and financiers who have faith in me and have faith in the cast I put together, it’s like an unlimited space where I can just say, Ooh, I want something unexpected. I do think that audiences are changing now, and I’m grateful for that. Like they aren’t only requiring Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise. They don’t go see movies anymore for capital M, capital S Movie Stars. They’re seeing films for all different kinds of reasons.
And off the back of someone like Juliette Lewis, you have so much shade and so much beautiful cover. She provides you with such a doorway. She knows that about herself. It’s wonderful. She’s like, if I’m here, and that means the rest of the cast can be Amanda’s choice and her designation. Then, let’s go get the best people, let’s get the funniest, brightest, coolest, most unique cast together. I’m just always gonna go for it.
With this film, I also specifically wanted to work with Mamoudou Athie, a friend of mine. He’s one out of one. So you don’t get a “Mamoudou-like” actor. You either get him, or you don’t get him. I knew I wanted him. I went to nobody else. I try to go by my instincts, and I try to find producing teams who trust those instincts. When I’m lucky enough to have someone like Juliette Lewis, then the instincts can take me even further.
You’ve mentioned the 1988 film “Call Me” as a reference. I love Patricia Charbonneau. If it were the ’80s, I would leave everyone for her.
She’s the most ultimate. “Call Me” is such a profound film in my life. I always tell people to watch it. People look at me like I’m recommending them to some sort of Showtime after-hours type erotic thing. But it’s so good, and there are some gorgeous set pieces. It’s perfect and should never be remade. But if it ever gets to be remade, it better be me.
It obviously influences your film, which incorporates dance, body movement, and body lounging, if you will. I think Juliette Lewis spends half the film in repose. A lot of Patricia’s acting in “Call Me” is on the phone, lounging, the way you do when you’re in your own space.
I really think we are losing a lot of cinematic energy without landlines. People on the phone in movies, and the relationships between the phones, are incredibly profound, and we will no longer really have those in films. So I’m sad about that, but happy we have something like “Call Me” and many other films about stalkers on the phone. There’s a great one called “Lisa,” if anyone is in the mood for that.
As far as bodies are concerned, it’s hard because when you come from a theatre background, and there’s no lens, and there’s no close up, it’s all body all the time, and how you block and where you send someone across the stage is meaningful. The camera changes that, and you can start to make the elite choices. Like, I want to see the eyes. I want to see the hands. Suddenly, bodies become broken. There are mannequin parts. You can chop them off. You can chop off heads and chop off arms, and make very specific decisions about what parts of bodies people look at.
I think that one of the most interesting things about being in film is that suddenly, bodies are your mannequins. I did not feel like that in the theatre. I really didn’t. I actually felt like bodies were whole entities attached to hearts, minds, and souls. But through a lens, you can ask, what does it mean just to see feet? Filmmakers think about this. They use walking shots that show only feet. Why? What does that do? People are motivating body parts all the time for the plot.
So I am very much a person who thinks about repose. I’m not often in repose. I wish I were. But when you look at great paintings and fine art of women and men in repose, you think about daydreaming. You think about a solid space that the mind can be in, because there’s nothing going on with the body. So I really appreciated this juxtaposition of ecstatic dance with a totally non-moving body. And if your mind is taking flight and your mind is dancing, and your body isn’t, or your body is dancing, and your mind is steady, these are all things that I’m pretty interested in. The dance in this film is quite beautiful. The choreographer’s name is Sigrid Lauren, and she’s amazing.
And as far as body swap movies, that is another sub-genre I’m obsessed with. Why do we want to be in other people’s bodies? What does that provide us? I actually think we would all be really miserable. I think the misery doesn’t come across enough in these movies.
There are movies where people swap bodies with other people who are basically the same as them. What is that about? There’s something so dark about saying, “I just don’t want to be me,” but then this person is not much younger, much wealthier, much more handsome, attractive, or beautiful. This person is basically me. They’re just not me.
Is the proposition that most of us are walking around like, “I would just like a different adjacent moment to be living in”? And if that’s true, that should be so much scarier and sadder and not played for comedy. I find body swap movies are mostly played for comedy. You know, the hijinks of “whoa, I’m on roller skates that I’m not supposed to be.”
I think a body swap movie, that’s a horror movie, and I think people are starting to do that now. I feel very strongly about it as a subgenre. I think it needs to be delved into. Maybe I should write an essay film about it, because it’s so chaotic and upsetting.
What are the commonalities? What are the differences? What does it say about society that this is how we think it is to be in someone else’s shoes?
They’re morality tales. They’re meant to end with the characters saying, “Oh, I actually like myself, and I like my life, and I like my body, and I can’t wait to get back into it.” No one ends the film like how Juliette’s character does in my film, where they say, “You know what, I would have enjoyed being a chair for the rest of my life. It would have been pretty, pretty good. I’m sad and I long for it.” Instead, everybody is happy to get back to their body. It is very moral. It has a very Christian moral to it, the subgenre. I would love to see people start inverting that.
You’ve also mentioned as influences, Joanna Hogg’s film “Caprice” starring Tilda Swinton and Cynthia Scott’s “Flamenco at 5:15,” both of which are beautiful short films from the 1980s.
Those are my two favorite shorts of all time.
What do you love about those two films?
What I love about “Caprice” is that I think on its face, it’s got gorgeous production design, costume design, and sound design. It’s one of those films where, when you watch it, you immediately recognize a fine artist. A favorite quote of mine from Peter Greenaway is: “We could have had a cinema of painters, but we didn’t.” And it’s true, we could have had many more fine artists making movies. We should, whenever we can, integrate fine art into filmmaking.
“Caprice,” to me, is this complete overlap of everything aesthetic. It is like a floor-to-ceiling approach to design with brilliant acting, brilliant direction, and editing. It’s a great movie and a piece of art. I’m always going to be just ethically moved by that more than anything else. I’m not that interested in storytelling as an idea, you know, like the beginning, middle, and end of things. People do it well, and I’ve loved many movies that are great stories to be told, but I need something more, and it’s hard to describe. I see it when I see “Caprice.”
Similarly, the Cynthia Scott film is, from a documentary and dance-film standpoint, the most touching, elegant, striking, calm, and quiet. But it’s also a glimpse into a kind of dancing that most people don’t see or commit to. There are great ballet films, of course, and great modern dance films. But flamenco is this erotic and frankly exotic, classic traditional dance. I feel so lucky every time I watch it, because I get to be so close to this style of dance that I’ll probably never really see anyone perform in real life.
Are there any other female filmmakers whose films have inspired you or that you think people should seek out?
The filmmaker I want to talk about most is Vogue Giambri. She is a New York / New Jersey filmmaker. She is a deep weirdo and has absolutely no desire or design to be in the Hollywood mindset. Her films are like jazz and bebop. She’s a playwright, and she engages with the lens like it’s ecstasy. It’s a totally different style from what I have. I could never pull off. She’s committed to this… It’s all gut. If she wants to cut, she cuts. If it’s in the middle of a sentence, fuck it. It’s a millisecond. If she wants to show somebody digging through their purse, even though it makes no sense for the scene, she’s gonna do it. And that creates this thing that is absolutely its own creature. Every one of her films is a creature. It actually feels like it’s come out of a hole in the ground and just spread its strange limbs and crawled all over you and humped your face and then disappeared.
I mean, she’s so alive, and her work is so alive. She does not do subtlety. I dance with subtlety all the time. I’m always trying to be more subtle, while also being more intentional and intense. And she’s just, she’s intense the whole way. So if you can get down for that, and you should, her films are incredible. She’s yet to make a feature, and I’m dying for her, too, and all of her cult fans are dying for her, too. I think she just shot one, it’s not out yet, but she’s editing it, and if we’re lucky, we’ll all get to see it.
