Consider it a blessing that director Mike Madigan's hard-edged lesbian in "Demeter" isn't based on pals of his own.
"I don't know if I have any gun-wielding friends like that," laughs Madigan, a Troy resident who wrote the fan film.
Turning Demeter, a minor character of the local sci-fi series InZer0, into a lesbian just seemed appropriate. But Rio Scafone, the Royal Oak-based actress who plays her, insists it's not because of her abrasive shell – or "anti-Barbie" behavior, as Scafone puts it. Her street worn aura just needed a few doses of humanity – and homosexuality.
"We wanted to kind of give her a story that made her a little more human," says Madigan, who met Scafone at an InZer0 episode screening. "So we hint to the fact that before everything in the world went to hell, she actually worked on the stage and in the theater … and we hint back to this relationship and this performance on the stage, and this used to be who she was before. This used to be Demeter."
Demeter's relationship with Daphene (played by Yanni Kuznia), a sniper, crept into the script through a couple of lines Madigan wrote. Scafone, who has played lesbian roles in several indie films, picked up on the hints. "I think that he was worried that I was going to think he was exploitive with it at first," Scafone admits.
As a bisexual actress, Scafone knows stereotypes when she reads them. And, if she feels the role exploits homosexuality, she'll reject it. "If our hope and dream is to have true diversity in film, it shouldn't be centered around the fact that (a character is) gay," she says.
But the actress, before reading the script and agreeing to act in the director's 10-minute short film, shared Madigan's vision for Demeter. "For me she always was (lesbian)," says Scafone, who worked in nuances outside of Madigan's original script.
As the two hashed out the story, kicking around ideas about this pre-InZer0 affair, they agreed the strong-willed women's relationship was, at one time, fiery. "Everybody is looking to belong somewhere," Scafone says. "When you find someone that accepts you with your flaws – and can look at you and know everything about you and still want you, and still love you and care about you – that is a pretty powerful bond. That is what those two share."
Once the ladies' relationship unravels, and Demeter discovers her lover's shocking secret, the film takes a turn. Though the film isn't necessarily "The L Word" in hell, the relationship will bloom in the next installment, which Madigan plans on shooting in March.
"I want to take this relationship and give it more screen time," Madigan says.
"Demeter" was shot over three days in the Hastings Street Ballroom in Detroit, which allowed Madigan to capture the film's theme of a broken future. Though "Demeter" retains this image also through visual effects, Madigan zeroed in on the characterization of the women, whose same-sex relationship hasn't been touched in the series. And with that, fuming remarks have echoed in the local film community, Scafone notes.
"The (film) community's basically writing it off," she says. "They don't think there will be visible support or turnout for characters like this because they're not the lipstick kind of lesbians. … These characters aren't normally presented in our market. I'm well aware of that."
"Demeter"
7 p.m. Feb. 6
Main Art Theatre, Royal Oak
www.myspace.com/demeterfilm
