Tribeca 2022: Rahul Kohli, Mali Elfman, and Diva Zappa Talk Next Exit, On-Set Family, and Female Filmmakers
Mali Elfman hits Tribeca Festival with her feature directorial debut Next Exit. The film follows two strangers, played by Katie Parker and Rahul Kohli, who go on a cross-country trip to participate in scientific study known as Life Beyond that allows people to commit painless suicide with the knowledge that an afterlife does exist. I spoke with director and writer Mali Elfman, Rahul Kohli, and Diva Zappa at the Tribeca Festival red carpet about working on the film.
Elfman shares that Next Exit was a project she has written years ago, but the story became more relevant to her during Covid. “I was writing it over the course of about 10 years and at the start of Covid it just became incredibly relevant and timely to me again the idea that one thing changes and our entire reality shifts. So I wanted to have a discussion about that without making a Covid film,” she shared with me. “Then I wanted to add ghosts because ghosts are part of my life.”
Rahul Kohli was drawn to Next Exit because of the promise of a challenging and intimate experience. “It was the way in which it was being made. I'd never done anything like that before. I thought the material was awesome, but the fact that we were actually going to shoot this as a road trip and we were gonna do a road trip physically […] and almost shoot sequentially as we moved across America was something I wanted to experience,” Kohli shared with me. “I was looking for a challenge something that wasn't necessarily a big machine. [It was] something a little bit intimate. Everyone had more than one job on this thing. Those were the kind of things that tempted me to want to do this project. This is a unique film that everyone needs to experience.”
Diva Zappa was thrilled to work with an empowering female director like Elfman. “Mali Elfman […] is an incredible human, an amazing talent. She wrote this, she put her heart into it, and I just really am happy to be part of her vision. That's what drew me to it because anything she creates is something worthy of an experience,” said Zappa. “I hope there are more women who are strong like Mali and she can be an inspiration for other people to tell their stories and to get out there and do this work. It's awesome to have a woman director.”
The cast of Next Exit came together through friends of friends or past jobs, which led to a family type vibe on set. Elfman connected with Katie Parker who she had worked with on another project about 10 years ago, while the film found Kohli connecting with his former iZombie co-stars Rose McIver and Tongayi Chirisa. “It wasn’t planned that way,” said Kohli, “[but] it felt like one of those types of movies where everyone was pitching in anyway and then we also had some sort of background. It felt very much like a family movie.”
Those friendships eventually led to Kohli being cast in the film. “Rahul I knew from iZombie. I’m a friend of Rose McIver’s. I used to watch her show and I saw him and he was so charming,” said Elfman. “Then I watched him in Bly Manor and he just shattered my heart into pieces. I was like, ‘I want him.’ I went out to every single person that I possibly could to try to get him in the film and I’m just so grateful that he responded to the material.”
Following its premiere, Next Exit took home the Tribeca win for Best Cinematography in a U.S. Narrative Feature.
