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Stories from our sets, the films that shaped us, and what four independent films taught us about making movies our own way.

9 articles

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Behind the scenes of Residuum: the RV, the crew and the actors in the desert yardNovember 6, 2026 · 7 min readWhy We Self-Distribute Our Films on Our Own WebsiteDistributors offered to take $100,000 off the top before we saw a dollar. Amazon locked us out. So we put our films…Read the article →A statue of Mother Teresa in prayer, in her white sari with blue stripesOctober 30, 2026 · 8 min readRosebud: Writing a Film About the Girl Mother Teresa Was Before the World Knew HerBefore Calcutta, Mother Teresa was Gonxhe, an Albanian girl in Skopje. Why I spent two years writing a film about her childhood,…Read the article →Greta Zenelaj as Helena with her daughter Lola in the protest crowd in Shkodër, from Shqipe/EagleOctober 23, 2026 · 6 min readGoing Home to Film April 2, 1991: How We Made Shqipe/Eagle in ShkodërOn April 2, 1991, four young men were killed in Shkodër. Twenty-one years later, we went home to film it, with our…Read the article →An empty desert road at dusk on a Residuum location, the dystopian thriller by Greta and Vilma ZenelajOctober 16, 2026 · 6 min readMovies About the Rapture: Why We Made a Film Where Millions VanishFrom A Thief in the Night to Left Behind and The Leftovers, the films that imagined millions disappearing, and why Residuum leaves…Read the article →The crew filming a scene by lamplight on the first Residuum shoot by Greta and Vilma ZenelajOctober 9, 2026 · 10 min readHow to Make a Movie With No Budget: What Four Films Taught UsWhere we saved money, where we lost it, and what we would do again: the story of four independent films, from a…Read the article →Helena faces riot police in Shqipe/EagleOctober 2, 2026 · 5 min readWe Grew Up in a Real DystopiaCurfews, food rations and one TV channel from six to ten at night. How growing up in communist Albania shaped Residuum and…Read the article →The Residuum RV lit at night in the desert, from the film by Greta and Vilma ZenelajSeptember 25, 2026 · 11 min readHow We Made Residuum TwiceWe shut down our own feature five days in, after spending $56,000. Then we made Residuum again with a thousand-dollar RV and…Read the article →Zoe and Tom seen through the RV window in Residuum, the dystopian thriller by Greta and Vilma ZenelajMarch 20, 2026 · 8 min readBest Dystopian Survival Movies (and Books) That Shaped ResiduumFrom Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 to Children of Men, Signs, and 28 Years Later, the dystopian stories a filmmaker who…Read the article →A grinning client on the massage table in What Do I Do Now?, the dark comedy by Greta and Vilma ZenelajMarch 6, 2025 · 7 min readWhy Choosing the Right Story Matters, and Why We Love Writing What We KnowA spa waiting room, a broken heart, a mother and daughter in Michigan, and an RV in a driveway. How every Colored…Read the article →

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