Gabel credits the city of New Orleans as the source of her inspiration. Years earlier, while shooting ANTHEM, Gabel passed through the city and found herself immediately “visually inspired. There were locations that I knew I wanted to shoot,” recalls Gabel. “There are communities built around these corner bars – there were a few that became my favorites – and I would spend a lot of time just sitting. You would find the same people there at ten in the morning as you would find at ten at night.”
“There are entire neighborhoods in the city that can be ghettoized and forgotten,” says Gabel. “I wanted to set the story among people one wouldn’t necessarily see, those on the fringe.” In the characters of Bobby Long, an alcoholic professor who’s given up on his former life, and Pursy, a teenager with no parents or education, Gabel saw the opportunity to explore flawed, complex people who are too often passed over.
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