The Big Picture

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a memorable, immersive film that explores the life of a Black woman in the South in a fluid and non-linear way. Director Raven Jackson had a deep involvement in the sound design of the film, using sound cues to create a quiet and atmospheric experience. The editing process was a discovery and involved placing scenes on a timeline, taking things away, and trusting the process to create a modular film with precise moments and connections.

If there is one feature debut that will end up being one of the most memorable of this year or any other, it’s Raven Jackson’s emotional epic of small moments that is All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. First premiering back at this year’s Sundance and now getting a theatrical release for all to take in its spellbinding visions, there is nothing that is quite like it as it takes us through an immersive jounrey in the life of the young Mack from a young age all the way to adulthood.

In connection with this release, we spoke to Jackson about the journey of making the film from how it first came to her, what the process was like of writing it, and what is coming next.

Image via A24 All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
A lyrical, decades-spanning exploration across a woman’s life in Mississippi, the feature debut from award-winning poet, photographer and filmmaker Raven Jackson is a haunting and richly layered portrait, a beautiful ode to the generations of people and places that shape us. Release Date November 3, 2023 Director Raven Jackson Cast Kaylee Nicole Johnson, Sheila Atim, Chris Chalk, Charleen McClure, Moses Ingram Main Genre Drama
COLLIDER: I looked at some other interviews you’d done because I try not to ask similar questions and one of the things that had stood out was people wanting to put the film in a box in terms of what it isn’t doing. That it doesn’t have a plot in any sort of conventional sense or that it doesn’t follow a sort of linear time to the point that they were missing out on what you are doing. That it was defining it in opposition to some sort of “standard.” I was curious when you set out to make a film like this, I imagine it’s not that you’re like, ‘oh, I don’t wanna do this. I don’t want to follow a plot.’ It’s more of I want to capture feeling and emotion. To start off on that, what was it that drove you to make this film?

RAVEN JACKSON: Yeah, it was a multitude of things. I knew I wanted to explore the life of a Black woman in the South and I wanted to do so in a very fluid way. It took me a while to come to the page though. I had to feel the film, the world of the film, before I could come to the page and write anything. That came in me taking photographs of landscapes, of family members. And then eventually I did start to write what I call portraits, the different scenes in the film for different ages. I remember reading Toni Morrison’s essay “The Site of Memory” and she speaks of the Mississippi river flooding in one of the lines and about the emotional memory, the memory of water. I remember when I came across the word flooding, it really landed to give me language for what I’m going for, which is if our lives were to flood, what are those moments that would rise to the surface? How do they interact with each other? What are those moments that would rise to the surface? Not just the seemingly big ones, but I was interested in the quote unquote “smaller” ones too, the more mundane. What does that look like? So when I really discovered that language, it allowed me to be able to speak to the fluid nature. Just the language of calling it fluid I have to discover for myself, the fluid nature that I’m looking for with this film.

When you talk about memory, it’s hard for me to think of a film that just feels so precise when it comes to sound, when it comes to the water rushing by, the gentle unraveling of a fishing line, and all of these little things. When it comes to that sound component, was that something you were writing in and talking with a technical team about? Because that’s so much a part of the experience as well.

Yeah, I was from the beginning stages of writing. I had certain sound cues in the script and the sound details. I knew from day one that it was gonna be quiet with less dialogue and that the sound would be a score essentially for the film in a lot of ways. I used to record sound so I like thinking about sound too. So yes, I had those details in from the beginning stages of writing the script.

What did you used to do recording sound?

I was a mixer and I also did boom too.

Image via A24

When it then comes to that editing process of putting it all together, how involved were you with the edit?

Yeah, I worked with the amazing Lee Chatametikool who has experience working in more fluid films and films that break structure in ways. I was very involved and, in some moments, I really looked at the cut, like a cut between scenes, as almost like a line break in a poem, you know? There’s a reason this scene is here coming next. One of the reasons I was really drawn to working with Lee is that he has deep experience working in sound design as well. Knowing that even in the early cuts, the sound design, for the film to work, it was to really be there. Being intentional with how the sound is adding layers and giving information to what is the texture of the rain, the texture of the thunder. How loud is that thunder? What is it evoking? It makes me think of after the grocery store scene, there’s a really loud hit of thunder and being intentional with how loud. That sound designer was Miguel Calvo.

It’s such a modular film. I knew the script would be the starting point and once we got into the edit, it wouldn’t be exactly the script. I knew that. The script is only 60 pages. It was the process of placing things on a timeline, seeing what works, taking things away. We shot more than is actually in the film. So it was really a process of discovery, listening, taking time away from the cut and having to trust that process.

When you then come back to it, are there things that even you find that you maybe hadn’t thought of when you first sat down?

100 percent. I find I need that space with the cut because there are questions you have at the end of the day. Then, after two days of sitting with it, it’s like, ‘of course it’s not that’ or ‘of course it is’ or ‘no, it needs this actually.’ Sometimes I just need space to come to that because you’re so in it. But I love re-watching things. My producers make fun of me because I always say I need to sit with it. [laughs] Time is very key for me to process it.

Image via Sundance

I did want to ask a little bit about the cast with their characters and the relationships that end up connecting together in a striking way where you don’t really know until you’ve sat down with it. When it comes to finding this cast, what was the process for you of working with them and of talking to them about the story?

I like working with a mix of more experienced actors and first timers. It was a long process. I had to trust it a lot. But I also love the challenge of finding people. It was coming at it at a lot of different angles. For instance, with Charleen McClure who plays Mack’s late teens to early thirties, she’s a friend in my life, she’s a poet. There was a moment where we were just in the park together and I just saw it. She hadn’t acted before, but she has a face that carries many years which the role needs because it’s late teens to early thirties. Someone who can believably play that range. Then she also has a face, I feel that says things without needing to use words. So after a lot of exploration and seeing, you know, what’s possible there, it became clear that, ‘ok, it’s her.’

I don’t want to get too into specifics about the ending, but it feels like this perfect moment where all of the time is brought together. Was that something that you always had envisioned for it or did the process of making it change it in any way?

Yeah, it felt like it needed one more stretch. To your point, I don’t want to say too much, but I’m so moved by the cut into that very last scene with the hand on the clay dirt bank because, for me, that is everything. It’s the title, it’s tradition, it’s the body, it’s changed. To go from the rain to show her young again, it speaks to the eternal nature of change. It felt right to end on that.

That eternal nature of it really creates that feeling of how it’s all connected.

Right. And you know, that’s the thing, at the beginning of the making of the film, I would sometimes say ‘the texture of memories’ and speak about the film in those terms. But as I continued to build it, it was clear to me that all these moments are now. There’s no past, no future, it’s now. It’s all now for me. The never ending cycle.

This is a movie that’s a sensory experience that really immerses you in it, so I wanted to ask, what has it been like where you maybe have seen it with audiences?

Yeah, you know, I don’t do it often. I think I only did it with Sundance. I sit in for a few minutes usually. I’m very particular about making sure the sound is right and testing it in the tech check But then I like to sit when people are in there to see how it feels with more bodies in the room and it’s always nice when the sound is at the right level and the thunder and that first scene hits the way you want it to hit. Then you hear the water. I like to say that the film is kind of an invitation for folks to be in their body and allow the film to wash over them in a way. When I’m sitting for the beginning of the film and the sound is there, in the right way in the theater, it feels like, ‘ok, hopefully folks are gonna go for the ride.’

What has it been like coming off of this first feature and what is it you hope to do next?

Yeah, I do know what my next feature is. I’m not saying much yet. There’s movement on it which is exciting, especially with the resolving of the WGA strike. It’s exciting to be beginning to grow something else while still bringing All Dirt Roads into the world. But yeah, I’m excited.

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is now playing in limited release in the U.S. Click here for showtimes near you.