‘Play It Safe’ Director Mitch Kalisa On Re-Evaluating the Definition of a Safe Space

Mitch Kalisa’s short film, Play It Safe, deserves to be shortlisted this year for the immeasurable impact it places on the viewer. Set in a rehearsal studio, a young, Black actor sits among a sea of white faces. Each student draws the card of an animal, and the teacher instructs her young charges to perform as that animal without vanity. She wants to see everyone use their bodies, their sounds, and their movements to transport them. What happens when a Black student pulls a card that will ask him to perform in a racially insensitive way? Director Mitch Kalisa drew from his own experiences and feelings to create a film led by an astonishing Jonathan Ajayi.

I know the spaces that Kalisa sets his film in. In those large, mostly empty rehearsal rooms, the sound echoes and you can’t hide behind anything. It’s meant to make you vulnerable, and Kalisa remembers performing in classes at drama school.

“When I was younger–maybe 12 years old–I thought my love of film meant I wanted to be in them. I remember I did some weekend classes as a prestigious drama school, and I would almost always be the only person of color. I enjoyed the experiences but I always had this hard-to-put-your-finger-on moments. It was hard to put into perspective then, and it was only when I grew up that I would face those similar situations of discomfort in work spaces and in the industry. It was coming from the same place–this unconscious bias, microaggression sort of behavior. It always took me back to those classes and the most discomfort I had was in the animal studies exercise. Even through this whole process, I was trying to figure out why it triggered me so much because it’s nothing like what happens with Jonathan in the film. It was nonconfrontational and no one made me do anything bad. There was something about being a Black person performing as an animal for a room of white people that was inherently loaded. It carried all these elements I was experiences that I was going through in my adult life.”

How do we make those spaces better? We assume that if a space is labeled as a “safe space,” then the work is done. It takes care of itself. What it does is create blind spots to real issues and it sometimes doesn’t allow real work to get accomplished.

“They are created with great intentions and a want to be better and do differently. Maybe the decision makers come from one demographic. The people who end up running safe space are people who come the place that aren’t in desperate need of the spaces to begin with. There is a lack of communication and people are taking on this great thing without engaging the people who need the space. Going forward, a good place to start is to really engage with people in a creative space or liberal environment. There is a blanket assumption that because there are good intentions, the result will be good too. It’s hard to be mad at them, but a lot of upper middle class people can’t see it who might need it.”

Speaking with Ajayi was key to Play It Safe’s success. Kalisa and Ajayi had many discussions away from the cast in order to allow the lead actor to be in the driver’s seat. In other films dealing with race, the control is taken away from a person of color, but Kalisa wanted to ensure that it was also about our reaction to it. We don’t see Ajayi performing even though we hear him. Instead he focused on the raw reaction of the other people in the class.

“Jonathan [Ajayi] almost didn’t want to do the job. He liked the idea but it was within his rights to be cautious whether it was going to be executed at a level that would make it important and well-made film. We spoke a lot about the last moments in the entire process–even from our first conversations. We wanted to find a language where we both understood where it was about witnessing about a Black guy pretending to be an ape but he was throwing this mirror up in the filmmaking process. It opens it up rather than focuses on him. Once we connected with that, we knew what the performance meant, especially with not showing it. With seeing how people react, you know he’s killing it. We rehearsed it away from everyone, so the actors playing the teacher and the classmates are really reacting to it. I really wanted to capture that fresh look at his performances. It was very affective to witness. I love the unpredictable nature of the first take. We did it twice, and what we see is the first take.”

Play It Safe leaves us with a question. After Jonathan performs, the teacher asks, “Well, where do we start?” before the film ends. Kalisa wants us to look at our moviegoing neighbor and create a dialogue as a reaction to this film. We can only tackle the topic of race if we continue to observe the evolving conversation about it.

“A lot of films that tackle similar themes have a preachy quality to them. It’s like, ‘this is the message’ or there is a finger-wagging tone to it, and it preaches to the choir. It can be easily ignored by other people who have heard it before. It’s not urgent. I wanted to make something that couldn’t be ignored and put into the pantheon of “issues films.” I wanted to make something that was interactive. That’s a strong word, but I wanted to encourage audience participation, in a way. I want there to be a discussion about it after it’s over. Even at the online festivals, people were messaging me, and I saw it again at the London Film Festival in person. A lot of dialogue was created, and it was beautiful to see it.”