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Trauma and its impacts can change the lives of those who experience it forever. No one goes through life untouched by its grasp. It can happen to anyone, at any time, at any age, which makes it most upsetting when children have to face these feelings when they don’t even have the words to describe them. Christine Swanson’s Basement People reflects on who society deems as broken, and the dysfunctional yet loving families they come from.

Before this interview, I had the opportunity to watch Basement People, and even in its limited runtime, it floored me. Based in Detroit, a seven-year-old Tina (Sage Oriel Ward) is navigating through life, trying to fit in with a family that doesn’t completely look kindly on her mental health struggles. So quick to throw labels on her, Tina has a family that loves her but doesn’t understand her, except for her Uncle Keith (Marcus LaRon), who lives quietly in the basement. Within, there’s a touching exploration of finding our true selves underneath the labels others want to give us.

Our conversation on Basement People shows how much care Swanson has for the subject matter. Especially in bringing Kyale Akeem William’s story to life so honestly. It’s a vital Michigan story from its script to the locations it was based on and filmed in. Swanson’s work is moving, and it offers a perspective that is intensely needed for people everywhere.

Please enjoy our conversation below, and check out Swanson’s other work.

Megan Loucks: “Your new short film (Basement People) is based on Kyale Akeem Williams’s story that he wrote while incarcerated. It reflects on the mental health of a young girl filmed in Detroit. What about this screenplay jumped out at you as something you’d like to bring to the screen?”

Christine Swanson: “What jumped out at me immediately was the humanity of Tina. She is an seven-year old girl trying to make sense of a world that does not make sense to her. She is sensitive, emotionally fragile, and struggling with depression, yet the adults around her have very little capacity to understand what she is experiencing.

I was also drawn to the idea of the basement. Everyone in the family sees Uncle Keith as the broken person in the house because he has withdrawn from the world and lives downstairs. But as the story unfolds, we begin to question who is actually creating the danger and who is actually providing safety.

That contradiction really stayed with me. I saw an opportunity to tell a story about mental health and family dysfunction without making it a simple story about who is right and who is wrong. There is a lot of pain in this family, but there is also a lot of humanity.”

ML: “What responsibility did you feel, as the director, to bring a story written during incarceration to an audience that may have little understanding of that experience?”

CS: “I felt a responsibility to honor Kyale’s voice and, most importantly, to honor the humanity within his writing. I did not want his incarceration to become a gimmick or the thing that defined the film. He is a writer first, and the screenplay deserved to be approached on its own artistic merits.

At the same time, I understand that there is something significant about a story coming from someone who was writing while incarcerated. There are so many people whose voices are never heard because of the circumstances of their lives. As a filmmaker, I believe part of my responsibility is to create space for those voices to be seen and heard without reducing people to their circumstances.

I also wanted to bring my own perspective to the film. I am a Hollywood filmmaker, but I am a Detroit native. So there is a meaningful connection between where Kyale wrote this story and where I am telling it from. I wanted that connection to be felt in the authenticity of the film.”

ML: “Because Basement People is a 17 minute film, there’s little time to establish the family and everything that Tina is experiencing. How did you decide what the audience needed to know and what you could leave unsaid?”

CS: “I always believe the audience is smarter than we sometimes give them credit for. We did not need to explain every family relationship or tell the audience why every character behaves the way they do. We needed to give them enough to understand Tina’s emotional experience.

The film stays very close to Tina’s point of view. We see the house through her eyes. We hear the things she hears. We experience the escalation of the family conflict from her perspective. That allowed us to leave certain things unsaid while still making the emotional stakes clear.

For me, the most important thing was that the audience understand how Tina feels. She feels unwanted. She feels unsafe. She does not know who she can trust. If the audience feels those things with her, then we do not have to explain every detail of the family’s history.”

ML: “From the title, the basement of the home is a vital part of the film. How did you approach creating the basement’s atmosphere? And was it different in your approach from the rest of the house?”

CS: “Absolutely. The basement had to feel like a completely different world.

Upstairs, the house is crowded with people, noise, conflict, judgment, and constant movement. There is very little emotional space. The basement is physically darker and unfinished, but emotionally it becomes quieter. That contrast was very important to me.

I wanted the basement to initially feel frightening because that is how Tina has been taught to see it. Uncle Keith is supposed to be the person we are afraid of. But when Tina actually enters the basement, the audience begins to see it differently. It becomes a place where the noise stops. It becomes a place where two people who have been labeled as different can simply exist.

That reversal was one of the most important visual ideas for me. The place that looks the most dangerous can actually feel the safest.”

ML: “Basement People recently won Best Short Film at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, an Oscar qualifying festival. What did that recognition mean to you and the team?”

CS: “It meant a great deal to us because this is such a deeply meaningful film. To have an audience and a respected festival recognize the story was incredibly rewarding.

What made it especially gratifying was knowing where this story began. Kyale wrote it while incarcerated, and now his words have traveled into a completely different space and connected with audiences. That is powerful.

For me personally, having a film rooted in Detroit and created by a Detroit writer receive that kind of recognition was also deeply meaningful. I am proud of where I come from, and I am proud that we were able to bring this story to the screen with authenticity and care.”

ML: “What about Detroit made it the right place to tell the story of Basement People, and how did the city influence the film?”

CS: “Detroit is not just the backdrop of this story. Detroit is part of its DNA.

I grew up in Detroit, so I understand the texture of the city, the architecture, the neighborhoods, the houses, and most importantly, the people. There is a particular authenticity to Detroit that you cannot manufacture on a sound stage.

The house in Basement People feels lived in. It feels like a real family home where generations have gathered, where people have history, where there is love alongside dysfunction. That was important to me.

I also wanted to resist the tendency to portray Detroit only through hardship. Detroit has tremendous beauty, humor, resilience, and humanity. Even within this difficult family story, there is warmth and there are moments of connection. Shooting in Detroit allowed us to ground the film in a place that I know intimately.

ML: “What do you hope the audience who watches Basement People walks away with after viewing?”

CS: “I hope they walk away questioning who we decide is broken.

We are very quick to label people who behave differently, particularly people struggling with mental health. We call them difficult, unstable, too sensitive, or crazy. But sometimes those labels prevent us from actually seeing the person underneath them.

I want audiences to see Tina and understand that sensitivity is not weakness. I want them to see Keith and recognize the humanity in someone who has withdrawn from the world. And I want them to think about the ways families can pass pain from one generation to another without even realizing they are doing it.

Most of all, I hope people leave the film with a little more compassion for the people who live in the basements of our communities, whether those basements are physical, emotional, or societal. Sometimes the people we have pushed out of sight are the ones who most need to be seen.”

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