Charlie Kaufman and writer Eva H.D. don't follow conventional filmmaking rules... well, ever, but especially when they collaborate. Their latest project, the poetic 27-minute short How to Shoot a Ghost, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Its U.S. premiere is today at the 2025 Woodstock Film Festival.
The short follows two people, Anthi (Jessie Buckley) and Rateb (Josef Akiki), as they wander through Athens. Both of them are ghosts, newly dead. They reflect on the past (their own as well as the history of the city around them) and meaning.
It's the team's third collaboration, after H.D.'s poem "Bonedog" appeared in Kaufman's 2020 feature I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and their 2023 short Jackals & Fireflies.
The film blends street photography, archival footage, and loose narrative beats to explore mortality and memory.
The project began simply. H.D. was in Athens and pitched making a film there.
"Eva suggested that we do a film that takes place in Athens, and I was up for it," Kaufman said. "She was staying in Athens at the time, and she wrote something, and that's how it started. More back-and-forth kind of conversations about it."
No Film School spoke with Kaufman and H.D. about their creative process, the challenges of the shoot, and why short films deserve to be taken seriously as an art form.
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Why Heavy Plot Doesn't Work for Poetry
The film explores opposing themes—the desire to leave something behind versus self-destruction. I wondered about how they approached theme in their storytelling.
"I think you would just write it, right? And then you would know after," H.D. said. "You could tell once you write something, what's in it, I guess."
Many writers do say they find theme through the process of writing, after the story is on the page and not before. It all depends on your process. H.D. commented on the difference between planning and discovering through the act of creation.
"I think a thought in your head, it's not the same as a thought in print, a picture in your mind. It's not the same as a painting, regardless of what the painting looks like in your mind," H.D. said. She added, "I think if you're making a poetic short film about longing and the ghost of history or whatever, you don't have to do that stuff maybe."
Kaufman agreed, noting that their approach required a different structure than traditional narrative filmmaking.
"I think that a heavily plotted story would not work for the thing we were doing," Kaufman said. "I feel like it gets something that's mechanical, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but that works as a machine. It doesn't allow for the thing that I think we were hoping to do here, which is to sort of create an environment for an audience to have their own interaction with. There's something about a very driving or a very driven plot that sort of forces you along with it."
H.D. revealed an early draft of the story that included a more concrete plot point—one ghost was originally a heroin user still craving drugs after death, wandering Athens in search of a fix. They ultimately abandoned that idea.
"That's not very interesting, as it turns out," Eva said.
"I think it's interesting," Kaufman countered. "I like to be reminded of that iteration."
The Reality of Shooting in Athens
The six-day shoot unfolded across Athens with more complexity than the film's dreamy wandering might suggest. While the film has an observational, wistful quality, the production was well-crewed and required extensive coordination.
"We had a main crew who were shooting the very scripted stuff, which is where I was," Kaufman said. "And then we had a second unit that was off finding the stuff that exists interstitially in the film. And it was, yes, it was a very difficult six days traipsing all over Athens with a crew. It wasn't like there was three of us. There was a crew, we had a legitimate crew, and there were a lot of locations, and every day was a struggle to make, and some of the days we couldn't make it, and we had to decide what to cut."
H.D. had sent Kaufman photographs of locations around the city before they had a firm plan. One image was of a hot dog stand in an industrial neighborhood.
"I would take pictures of things that Charlie might like and I would send them to him," H.D. said. "This is all over the city, because we didn't have a plan yet. I was just like, this is what it looks like. These are things I think are cool."
That hot dog stand made it into the film, despite the logistical challenges of its industrial area.
"It's not friendly to film either. It's very difficult," Kaufman said. "Our Greek co-producers were really angry that day."
"They were so angry," H.D. said. "They were like, they're not allowed to be here. They were worried about our safety."
'How to Shoot a Ghost'Credit: Provided
Writing Outside the Format
A poet and writer by trade, H.D. admitted that her script didn't follow traditional screenwriting conventions, something she's still working to improve.
"Sadly, no," she said when asked if she wrote in industry standard format.
She has spoken elsewhere of using placeholders in the script for images they hoped to capture. When asked if she would change her process for their next project, she was a bit self-deprecating.
"I'll do it better. I'll be much better. I'll be more conventional. My goal is to be more conventional, and then it goes by the wayside. But I can still hope."
Kaufman noted the practical reason for standard formatting, saying, "Once the script goes to the crew, it helps if it's in a format" everyone can understand, to avoid confusion, he said.
Still, H.D. found some education in the process of making the short.
"I learned that film scripts are called after different colors every time there's a new one, which is a whole segment in Final Draft," she said, adding, "I became friends with the tech help at Final Draft, and now he sends me song suggestions. So that's cool."
What They've Learned from Collaboration
It seems their partnership is intuitive, with their answers frequently overlapping and playing off one another. When asked what they've learned from working together, both struggled to articulate a clear answer.
"Did we learn anything? Maybe we didn't learn anything," H.D. said.
After some back and forth, Kaufman offered his perspective on approaching H.D.'s writing.
"I feel very responsible to the writing in a way that maybe is, it doesn't serve the film, I don't know," Kaufman said. "I want to understand what it was that Eva was trying to do, and I want to be true to it, and I want to obviously figure out a way that it could be somehow there can be an analogous visual component."
H.D. suggested he might have actually unlearned something, which Kaufman took as a compliment.
"Unlearning something is not a bad thing. I think that that's not bad at all, actually," he said. "So I've unlearned how to be a filmmaker from working with Eva."
"Oh, great. That's wonderful. Now you're an amateur, so great," H.D. replied.
"No, I never knew how to be a filmmaker," Kaufman said.
Why Short Films Deserve Respect
Filmmakers often see short filmmaking as a more accessible way into storytelling, which it is, but Kaufman cautioned against the assumption that shorts are easy.
"It's certainly not, in my estimation, easier than making a feature," he said.
As such, Kaufman called for more respect for the format.
"It is its own thing. It's not seen as its own thing in the sort of Hollywood land. It's seen as a calling card often or less than," Kaufman said. "And I feel that's true in film festivals as well. It's not seen as equal to a feature film, but I think it is. And I think it is a form that allows you to do things that you can't do in features, and that it's a form that should be respected."
H.D. added her own spin. "Not the size of a film that matters. It's how you use it."
Advice for Aspiring Filmmakers
When asked what advice they'd give someone making their first short film, both were modest.
"They probably know more about making short films than I do already," H.D. said. "So I would say, 'Good for you. Teach me something.'"
She did recommend watching shorts by Eva Stefani, which both found helpful during their process.
Kaufman acknowledged that he couldn't offer universal advice since everyone's goals are different.
"I don't know what people are trying to do, and I can't instruct them because everyone's trying to do what they're trying to do. I'm trying to do what I'm trying to do," he said. "But I'd say, it's hard. Try to keep at it, because it's a lot of work."
His final piece of advice for aspiring filmmakers was simple.
"Try to be honest, I would say, is the thing that I think is the thing to do—whatever that is, whatever that means."
H.D. added, "Stay fed on set. Don't get hangry. Very important."
How to Shoot a Ghost will debut on the free library streaming service Kanopy after its festival run.
