Marta Roncada’s ‘Deliberate’ Tracks the Messy Fallout of a Student-Teacher Relationship

In "Deliberate," an intense and provocative short film from writer-director Marta Roncada, a woman returns to her old high school to confront a teacher about experiences between them that seemed romantic when she was 18 — but feel very wrong in retrospect.

The film, which plays Friday at the El Dorado Film Festival as part a shorts block, could have taken the easy and cathartic path of allowing the woman, Alice, a just revenge. But Roncada refuses to take narrative shortcuts, opting for a textured and painfully human story.

Alice (Kelly Lou Dennis) doesn't want simple revenge. And the teacher, Mr. Jacobs (Carl Beukes), has complex motives of his own. Both actors are compelling and believable, never showy. And Roncada moves assuredly through a minefield.

We emailed with Roncada — the award-winning filmmaker and founder of production company Whole Pictures — about the personal experiences she brought to "Deliberate," and her refusal to make things too simple for the audience.

MovieMaker: What inspired you to make "Deliberate"? Did you draw on personal experience?

Marta Roncada: I was the student in a student-teacher relationship. This film is my nightmare fantasy of what it would be like to confront my former teacher now that I’m older and can actually understand the true extent of what he did. At the time, I felt like we were in love, and that our relationship was this beautiful and special secret thing that I was lucky to be in.

But when I grew up and I turned the same age he had been, I imagined having that same kind of relationship with a high school student, and it felt so wrong. I kind of went to war with myself, trying to sort which perspective was right, and I put it on the page in the form of these two characters.

Alice represents how I see the relationship now that I can look back on it, and Mr. Jacobs represents what I thought it was back then — and what I was taught to think it was by my teacher.

MovieMaker: There are so many movies inspired by #MeToo, but this one goes in fascinating and complicated directions. It almost starts off like a primer on restorative justice — if the teacher would admit he abused his student, she seems like she'd be open to forgiving him. How did you land on that approach?

Marta Roncada: There are a lot of stories out there about people seeking justice (not only in the context of #MeToo), and most of them make the same point: getting revenge won’t make things better. The path to closure isn’t vengeance, but forgiveness. If I know that, then I have to think that my characters would too.

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Alice wants to let go of her pain so she can move on with her life, and she tries to achieve that by forgiving Mr. Jacobs. The ultimate question isn’t why she wants to forgive, but whether or not she can. How can you forgive someone who did something unforgivable? What does it mean for you if you can’t

Marta Roncada on the Uncompromising Storytelling of 'Deliberate'

MovieMaker: Surprisingly, we learn that neither of them has completely changed since what happened when she was a student. Were you ever tempted to simplify things or make them more black and white? Easier to track, ethically? 

Marta Roncada: Never. The situation is very complicated. There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance involved. Generally speaking, most people want to see themselves as good, even if they do bad things. But if you only see yourself as good, then you don’t have a reason to change. So in the short, Mr. Jacobs is always calling on Alice to believe in his version of events: He is a good person and did nothing wrong because they were in love.

On the other side of things, I personally experienced an incredibly strong impulse to reject the idea that I was a victim. I wanted to keep believing in the “good” version of events too, so then I wouldn’t have to feel the pain that came with the truth. You end up having a situation where it’s so tempting to go back into the mindset of the past, but that’s what keeps you in the cycle and prevents you from changing. Simplifying that would be a disservice to everyone who has gone through something similar in their relationships, and would certainly be less interesting to watch.

MovieMaker: How did you talk through both of these roles with your excellent actors?

Marta Roncada: We had a short rehearsal day where we went through the script together. We spoke about the characters — what their relationship had been like in the past, how it affected them now, what their lives were like — and we ran through the scene together.

It was really important to me to bring humanity to both these characters, so people could see themselves in this story and consider the same questions I had to face as a result of my experiences. Both Kelly and Carl really honored that and brought such amazing vulnerability and honesty to their roles. I can’t recommend working with them enough.

MovieMaker: What has the audience feedback been like?

Marta Roncada: Unbelievable. Before I started working on this, I hadn’t told anyone about my personal experiences with this subject. It was this secret I was ashamed of and terrified to share, so to have received such welcoming responses to this story has meant more to me than I can ever express. I’ve had people come up to me after screenings and tell me about their own experiences. Seeing what this has meant to them has made every bit of struggle worth it. 

MovieMaker: What was the biggest obstacle to making this, and how did you overcome it?

Marta Roncada: Finding the right ending! I wrote and filmed a different ending, but it wasn’t working in the edit. I resisted changing it for the longest time because I wanted a more clear-cut conclusion for Alice, but it didn’t feel as real to me as the rest of the piece. I had to take a break from the project to reflect on it for a while.

At the end of the day, the imbalanced power dynamic and the feelings between these characters is how they have always related to each other. It couldn’t have ended any differently. Maybe in the feature version.