Tina Kakadelis
Nature is all around us. Or at least it should be. The more technologically advanced we’ve become as a species, the more we’ve turned our backs on the natural world. Nanouk Leopold’s Toronto International Film Festival-premiering Whitetail is a return to nature born out of the writer/director’s own desire to spend time in the outdoors. Led by a performance from Natasha O’Keeffe, Whitetail cherishes the Irish wilderness while exploring the secrets that can be hidden there. Ahead of the world premiere, Leopold and O’Keeffe sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to discuss the soothing power of the woods, the film’s intense opening scene, and why we need to learn how to “rewild.”
Whitetail takes place in a small town in Ireland near a thick forest. These woods are overseen by park ranger Jen (O’Keeffe). She’s focused on biodiversity and conservation, but her ties to this area are deeper than merely being environmentally conscious. As a teenager (Abby Fitz), she experienced an immense trauma with her then-boyfriend, Oscar (Seán Treacy). Decades later, Oscar (now played by Aaron McCusker) has returned and Jen is forced to reckon with the events of their adolescence.
Much of the film takes place within this forest, as Jen is not only dealing with a deeply emotional struggle, but is also obsessed with finding the poachers who lurk in the woods. Leopold’s desire for such a nature-centric flick comes from an absence in her own life that she wanted to rectify.
“I grew up in Rotterdam, which is a very dense city. We don’t have a lot of nature there,” Leopold recounts. “I really believe that stories being embedded in an environment really brings them to life. I wanted so badly to go to the woods myself.”
“I think it does something to you. I think it really helps you become calm inside and think about what is the position of a person in the world?” muses Leopold. “You’re on your own, but you’re also part of nature. Somehow, it takes away the stress of having to be somebody. If you stand there in the landscape and you look at all the greenery, it just feels very soothing.”
Jen is the audience’s entrypoint into the story. O’Keeffe is likely known to viewers from period pieces and fantasy stories like Peaky Blinders, The Wheel of Time, and Widow Clicquot, a selection from TIFF 2024. In Whitetail, everything is stripped away. There aren’t any big, elaborate costumes or sets. Often, it’s O’Keeffe alone in the woods in an oversized sweater with dirt on her hands. This change was daunting to her at first, but provided an exciting opportunity.
“I was hooked in straight away. Really,” emphasizes O’Keeffe. “There was so much for me to get my teeth into. Ireland is my heritage. I was brought up in London, but my whole family is from Ireland. I was ready to go and play over there, but I had no idea it would be as fantastical as it was. I had no idea the landscape was going to do what it did to me. I know Ireland well, but I hadn’t explored the south of Ireland. It was epic.
“At the beginning, I was like, how the fuck am I going to do this?” laughs O’Keeffe. “You get asked to do a film, you say yes because you want to and it’s exciting, and then it’s like, fuck, I really got to do this. I’ve got to step it up and lead a film. As soon as I was in with Nanouk, I just felt like I was off to the races and we were all in it together.”
The first ten minutes of Whitetail show teenage Jen and Oscar carefree in the woods. They’re enjoying the life of kids with no real responsibilities. They can steal away to the forest, be in love, and exist outside of the world for a while. Of course, that fantasy brutally crashes down around them when a tragedy occurs. Without spoiling it, this tragic moment is part of the inciting incident of the film. After the scene ends, we skip forward in time to Jen as an adult. We don’t see the intervening years, but we do see the toll it took.
“At that point, you don’t really know what she’s done with that pain. We do end up learning she’s not done much with it other than conserving and working with nature,” explains O’Keeffe. “She’s controlling other things so personal things don’t go in and she doesn’t have to figure all that stuff out from her past. Abby gave an astonishing performance. Nanouk allowed me to watch a little bit of that sneakily, just so I could have a little glimpse at my younger self.”
“I think it was important,” Leopold follows up. “I think it was important that you saw it, that you saw a little bit of her pain. In the beginning, young Jen is still fresh and doesn’t know about pain. It’s such an excruciating moment after the incident and, Natasha, you’re with her. You had to carry that first hurt in all the other scenes. I think you did that really wonderfully, really beautifully.”
A first draft of the scene ended immediately after the moment of tragedy. The more Leopold thought about it, the more she realized the scene needed to continue for a few more moments.
“There’s this tragic accident, and Jen’s all alone. What does Jen do now?” asks Leopold. “Then, there’s this natural sound. Jen’s just sitting there, and then you hear this bird singing. It’s happy and it’s incredible. You think, how can the bird be happy? Look at what happened here. Nature doesn’t care, it just goes on. You live and you die, and that’s your purpose in nature. On the other hand, it’s also very lonely. Jen’s very alone.”
Technology has made our lives better in a multitude of ways, but it cannot replace the world around us. The sounds of leaves in the wind, the call of a bird, the scuttle of a chipmunk. We can recreate all these things with technology, but it doesn’t create the same sensation as being outdoors. Leopold talks about this idea of “rewilding,” a type of ecological restoration that calls for nature to take the wheel again. To be able to rebuild self-sustaining ecosystems.
It’s not just nature that needs a change to rebuild and be restored. Humans need that too. We need to remember the interconnectivity that exists on Earth. As much as we try to control everything, the reality is that we are at the liberty of the world around us.
“Jen found a way to control her pain and to control her life,” says Leopold. “But in a way that means there’s actually no room to breathe anymore and no room for expanding and for new life. The regeneration she’s actually working on in the forest, she should also do that in herself. She should help herself because it’s like her little plant. When the deer comes around, he eats it up. It’s not protected, but it needs to grow. For Jen, there needs to be new growth in my body and in my life.”
“We should rewild ourselves a bit,” Leopold continues. “That’s funny to say because rewilding is like leaving it alone, but it’s also protecting it so it’s able to develop. Sometimes you are your own predator. I mean, she really is eating up her own possibilities to connect to people there. She doesn’t need to cull the deer. She needs to cull herself in a way.”
“I could just listen to Nanouk talk all day,” smiles O’Keeffe. “It’s wonderful. I’ve got no words to say to that.”
