The Big Picture

Anu Valia’s debut feature We Strangers explores racial constructs and societal trappings.
Lead Kirby Howell-Baptiste embraced anonymity as empowering and humbling while preparing for her role.
The film follows Ray, a commercial cleaner who manipulates families with a lie to gain power.

At this year’s South by Southwest, writer-director Anu Valia celebrated the world premiere of her feature directorial debut, We Strangers, with lead Kirby Howell-Baptiste (TheSandman). This suspenseful drama marks Valia’s transition from short films and a number of hit television series with a narrative that highlights racial constructs, the process of assimilation and its harmful nature, and the consequences of societal trappings. The film also stars Sarah Goldberg, Tina Lifford, Kara Young, Paul Adelstein, Hari Dhillon, and Maria Dizzia.

During a conversation with Collider’s Steve Weintraub at SXSW 2024, Valia shared the importance of her first feature-length project and Howell-Baptiste revealed that to prepare for the role she “literally went in and cleaned places,” and no one acknowledged her. The anonymity, she tells us, was both empowering and humbling. The actress went on to say:

“What attracted me to [the script] was this idea of power and the idea of how you’re viewed versus how you view yourself…No one knew that I was an actor. No one even looked at me. No one looked me in the eye. We just came in, and we did our job. It is so interesting to me to be so anonymous, but yet have such an impact. And then you go home, and you live your life, and you are so completely and fully yourself, and you are not someone who people avert their eyes and mumble the list of chores to you. So I felt like that is an incredible character to play, an incredible person to illuminate for the world.”

So What Is the Plot of ‘We Strangers’?
Image via SXSW

“The film follows Ray [Kirby], who has a happy family life with her mom and her best friend. She works as a commercial cleaner. At one of her jobs, she meets this Indian man who’s a therapist, and he invites her to clean his house. She accepts the job because she needs some money, and she quickly gets pulled into
his
family life, and he is married to a white woman — race is important in the film. She soon finds out, very quickly, about his mistress’s family, another white family right down the road. As she starts working for these families, she impulsively tells this lie that she can speak to the dead, that she’s psychic, and they too quickly believe her. She starts to essentially use that lie to manipulate them and basically take power in these spaces where she is not seen and doesn’t traditionally have power.”

Check out the full interview in the video above for more behind-the-scenes of We Strangers, and what Howell-Baptiste has to say about what fans can expect from Netflix’s highly anticipated Season 2 of The Sandman.

There is currently no official release date for We Strangers. Be sure to stay tuned to Collider for more exclusive news from SXSW.

We Strangers (2024) We Strangers is an addictive and haunting study of race, class and assimilation, centering around Ray, a charming and self-determined woman living in Gary, Indiana.Release Date March 9, 2024 Director Anu Valia Cast Kirby , Sarah Goldberg , Maria Dizzia , Paul Adelstein , Tina Lifford , Hari Dhillon , Kara Young , Jared Canfield Runtime 80 Minutes Main Genre Drama Writers Anu Valia