The Love Witch (2016)

Interesting facts

• Box office: $281.1K
• Filmed in: Los Angeles and Arcata
• Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

The Love Witch is a 2016 American comedy horror art film written, edited, directed, produced, and scored by Anna Biller. The film stars Samantha Robinson as Elaine Parks, a modern-day witch who uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her with disastrous results. Shot in Los Angeles and Arcata, California, it premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. In May 2016, it was acquired for distribution at the Cannes Marché du Film by Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Production

While writing the script for The Love Witch, Biller had been reading relationship self-help books, and one particular piece of advice that stuck out to her was that if a woman wants to keep a man around, she should love him less than he loves her.

Casting for the film involved a typical audition process, and Biller has said that the most difficult role to fill was that of Trish. Even though she didn't intend for an English actress to play that role, she couldn't find any Americans who were right for it.

Biller chose Samantha Robinson for the lead role because she thought Robinson was "very poised and very self-possessed and she [had] a particular quality to her that's very different from most people nowadays". After Robinson accepted the role, she and Biller watched a series of classic movies featuring women with "great sociopathic performance".

Filming took place on a sound stage for two weeks, and then on specific locations for the rest of the shoot, including Eureka, California. The tea room scenes were shot in the Herald Examiner Building in Los Angeles.

The film is highly stylized with elaborate set and costume design and a color palette to match the aesthetic of a 1960s Technicolor film. Although the film emulates a 1960s look, the story is set in the present day and features modern cars and mobile phones.

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