Director Shira Piven’s new film “Welcome To Me,” made me laugh and also made me a bit sad. We caught up with her at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where her film was shown. In this interview we spoke to Piven about how she came to direct this film, Kristen Wiig and the forgotten people of our society.
“Welcome To Me, is about Alice Kleig played by Kristen Wiig, who lives a pretty uninteresting and lonely life and has a borderline personality. Every morning or is it afternoon, when she wakes up the first thing she does is pop in a video tape, yes, a video tape of Oprah Winfrey and watches it. And, it looks like she knows the dialogs of Oprah’s show and mantra by heart.
Her twin obsessions are watching Oprah Winfrey’s shows and buying lottery tickets. Full stop. Her world revolves around these twin obsessions. Lo and behold! she ends up winning that mega million lottery and instantly becomes rich. What does she want to do with all her money? A TV show. How she goes about getting the TV show and spends her millions makes for an interesting and sad story. Wiig pulls off a sensitive & poignant performance and goes to dark places that only she is capable of going.
The film stars Kristin Wiig, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Joan Cussack and others. Elliot Lawrence wrote the screenplay.
“Welcome To Me” releases May 14, 2015 in San Francisco Bay area.
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